Biden halts border wall building after Trump’s final surge
SAN DIEGO — In the days before Joe Biden became president, construction crews worked quickly to finish Donald Trump’s wall at an iconic cross-border park overlooking the Pacific Ocean, which then-first lady Pat Nixon inaugurated in 1971 as symbol of international friendship.
Biden on Wednesday ordered a “pause” on all wall construction within a week, one of 17 executive orders issued on his first day in office, including six dealing with immigration.
The order leaves projects throughout the border unfinished — but still under contract — after Trump worked feverishly last year to build 450 miles, a goal he said he achieved eight days before leaving office.
The Trump administration said it had identified $15 billion to reach a total of 738 miles, but it is unclear how many of those additional miles are under contract and what cancellation fees Biden would face to fulfill his pledge to not build “another foot.” Biden ordered answers within two months on how much the government committed, how much it would cost to extricate itself and whether contracts could be repurposed for other uses.
Dror Ladin, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, is scheduled to argue before the U.S. Supreme Court next month that it was illegal for Trump to divert billions of dollars from the Defense Department to build the wall.
John Kurc, an activist who posts videos of dynamite blasts by wall construction crews, said he saw one dynamite charge being set Wednesday afternoon in Guadalupe Canyon in easternmost Arizona, even as the inauguration was playing out in Washington.
Heavy machines have been crawling over roadways gouged into mountainsides, tapping open holes for posts on U.S. Bureau of Land Management property.
In Texas’ Rio Grande Valley, the busiest area for illegal crossings, advocates for the Texas Civil Rights Project saw idle trucks and construction equipment Thursday.
In San Diego, crews were out Thursday replacing a steel fence with tightly spaced poles topped with flat steel plates rising 30 feet, said Dan Watman of Friends of Friendship Park, a group that promotes public access to the cross-border park.