Biden's mystifying, perplexing and incomprehensible reversal on a border wall

But why not the entire border?

The Rio Grande Valley

It’s also bewildering, confounding and inexplicable. An enigma.

“Not another foot!” Joe Biden pronounced during his campaign and presidency—up until today.

Now, his administration will build a lot more than a foot of new wall (or whatever they want to call it.) The newly protected area is portion of the border in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley Sector. Now it is an officially designed area of “high illegal entry,” according to Security Sec. Alejandro N. Mayorkas. Work begins “immediately.”

As baffling as the reversal is, I have another, more important question: Why isn’t Biden building a wall along the rest of the porous, unprotected stretch of the southwestern border?

As I read Mayorkas’ “Notice of determination”, he cites a bunch of laws passed by Congress directing that he “shall take action….to carry out DHS’s border security mission.” In other words, “to deter illegal crossings in areas of ‘high illegal entry.”’ Not “may,” but “shall.”

The list of laws directing what he should be doing is impressive:

The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, as amended (“IIRIRA”)….as amended by the REAL ID Act of 2005…as amended by the by the Secure Fence Act of 2006…as amended by the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2008.

He explained that the IIRIRA as amended,

“called on the Secretary to construct reinforced fencing on the southwest border and provide for the installation of additional fencing, barriers, roads, lighting, cameras, and sensors on the southwest border. Finally, in section 102(c) of IIRIRA, Congress granted to the Secretary of Homeland Security the authority to waive all legal requirements that I, in my sole discretion, determine necessary to ensure the expeditious construction of barriers and roads authorized by section 102 of IIRIRA.

His words, not mine.

Congress was so troubled by illegal immigration, that it authorized the secretary to unilaterally “waive entirely” another bunch of laws that could slow down or block the wall. They are the:

• National Environmental Policy Act

• Endangered Species Act

• Clean Water Act

• National Historic Preservation Act

• Migratory Bird Treaty Act

• Migratory Bird Conservation Act

• Clean Air Act

• Archeological Resources Protection Act

• Paleontological Resources Preservation Act

• Safe Drinking Water Act

• Noise Control Act

• Solid Waste Disposal Act

• Resource Conservation and Recovery Act

• Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act

• Archaeological and Historic Preservation Act

• Antiquities Act

• Historic Sites, Buildings, and Antiquities Act

• Farmland Protection Policy Act

• National Wildlife Refuge System Administration Act

• National Fish and Wildlife Act of 1956

• Fish and Wildlife Coordination Act

• National Trails System Act

• Administrative Procedure Act

• Native American Graves Protection and

  Repatriation Act

• American Indian Religious Freedom Act

• Federal Land Policy and Management Act

(The extensive list demonstrates at least one thing: You can hardly do anything without a brigade of lawyers and a gigantic, suffocating bureaucracy standing by to throw in a wrench.)

It occurs to me that Mayorkas has documented his own failure to uphold the immigration law, as required by his oath of office. How could he have spent more than two years avoiding enforcement and denying the facts that kick in action? Cause for impeachment? Same for Biden?

Mayorkas declares that the DHS “will take immediate action to construct barriers and roads in the Rio Grande area, funded by a fiscal year 2019 appropriation.” (Does this mean that the money has just be sitting there all this time?)

Only now, after 7 million trespassers and an unknown number of “got-aways” have entered the United States does it occur to Mayorkas that the border is an area of “high illegal entry.”

So, why is he only taking action to protect only of fraction of the nearly 2,000 miles of the southern? Will he actually follow through and take the same action to protect the entire border?

I wouldn’t bet on it.