How Much Money Did Obama Spend On A Bordwe Wall

Border walls came to symbolize Donald Trump's presidential campaign, and were prioritized during his administration. The 400 miles of border wall that he has overseen will inflict ongoing damage upon Native American nations and border towns, frail ecosystems and endangered species, for every bit long as they stand.

President-elect Biden has been far quieter regarding his plans for border walls. When pressed during an NPR interview he said that "not some other pes" would be built while he is in role, which sounds similar a solid hope to abolish border wall condemnations and structure contracts on twenty-four hour period 1.

Just Joe Biden has been in the White House earlier, every bit Vice President during the Obama administration. Instead of halting construction and removing walls, they built more than than 100 miles of new wall forth the southwest border.

In 2006 so-President Bush-league signed the Secure Fence Act, which called for the erection of hundreds of miles of barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border. The Bush Assistants intended to build 700 miles by December of 2008, when his second term would come to an cease. Past April of 2008 and so-Homeland Security Secretarial assistant Chertoff had issued waivers that swept aside dozens of federal laws and "all federal, state, or other laws, regulations and legal requirements of, deriving from, or related to the subject area of" the named laws for all of the planned border walls.

By the finish of President Bush's time in part the U.Due south.-Mexico border was lined with 278 miles of 15-to-xviii-foot-tall pedestrian fence and 248 miles of vehicle barrier, for a total of 526 miles. Of those, 135 miles had been built prior to the passage of the Secure Fence Act.

The Obama-Biden Administration would oversee structure of an additional 128 miles of border wall. When Donald Trump was inaugurated in Jan of 2017 a full of 654 miles of border barrier (including both pedestrian fencing and vehicle barrier) were waiting for him.

Border communities were rightly upset by continued wall construction during the Obama presidency. Campaigning confronting Hillary Clinton in Southward Texas ahead of the 2008 Texas primary, candidate Obama said, "Nosotros have to work with local communities to deal with the border in intelligent ways. We tin't do it by edifice a wall along the edge. That's not going to piece of work."

Post-obit Barack Obama's victory he received a letter from Commissioners in Cameron Canton, an surface area of Due south Texas where walls had been planned nether the Bush Assistants but where, due to the time it took for the federal authorities to condemn individual property, none had yet been built. Expressing the wishes of border residents they wrote, "We respectfully enquire that you brand the counterfoil of the border wall on the Southern Border a elevation priority of your administration. Let us build bridges of friendship, safe, and prosperity – not walls of hatred and division."

Most of the Southward Texas walls would require the acquisition of private belongings, and the overwhelming majority of landowners in the path of these walls did not want to sell. Hundreds of state condemnations, carried out by Justice Department lawyers, were necessary in club to build them. Many of those condemnations were initiated nether the Bush-league Administration, merely they continued without pause under the Obama-Biden Assistants. In many instances the federal authorities did not obtain possession of properties until 2009 or 2010.

Earlier Barack Obama and Joe Biden moved into the White Business firm not a unmarried mile of border wall had been finished in South Texas' Lower Rio Grande Valley. The bulk of construction there occurred in 2009 and 2010, simply in a few locations information technology dragged on into 2011 and 2012. By the end of their get-go term 54 miles had been congenital through South Texas communities and wildlife refuges.

At the other end of the edge a department of wall planned for California's Otay Mountain Wilderness Area also remained unfinished when Barack Obama was inaugurated. Construction connected in early 2009, including the dynamiting abroad of 530,000 cubic yards of rock, which was allowed to tumble into the canyon below. While about of the pedestrian walls and vehicle barriers in California, Arizona, and New United mexican states were built in the lx-foot wide, federally owned Roosevelt Easement, at Otay the terrain was and so rugged that the wall and patrol route had to repeatedly intrude into the wilderness surface area which, according to its federal designation, was supposed to be roadless.

The border wall through Smuggler's Gulch, a coulee a few miles inland from the Pacific, was likewise completed during the Obama-Biden administration. At Smuggler'south Gulch the tops of depression mountains on either side of the canyon were demolished, and a 100-foot-tall earthen dam was built beyond it in club to create a level surface for the border wall and patrol road. This led to serious erosion which washed into the Tijuana estuary, smothering vegetation under sediment. The culvert meant to permit the Tijuana River to laissez passer under the berm also ejected flood water with much greater force than in the past, causing nearby backdrop to suffer flood damage.

In that location were also numerous locations where pre-existing border walls were replaced under the Obama-Biden assistants, including some in El Paso, Texas; virtually Naco, Arizona; and where the wall betwixt San Diego and Tijuana enters the Pacific Ocean. Sections of border wall that were swept away by flooding at Organ Piping Cactus National Monument, almost Nogales, Arizona, and through Andrade, California, were rebuilt during those 8 years as well.

All of the border walls built or replaced during the Obama-Biden administration relied upon the waivers of federal laws issued under the Bush-league Administration that gear up aside relevant environmental laws, laws protecting Native American graves and religious practices, and regulations meant to shield farmland and historic sites. The issuance of waivers under the REAL ID Human action is upwards to the discretion of the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the Obama-Biden administration could accept opted to comply with federal laws rather than use the preexisting waivers to ignore them when new border walls were erected or older ones were replaced.

With Joe Biden the winner of the 2020 presidential election the actions taken by the administration that he was previously a part of is non just of bookish interest. The past can exist a predictor of the time to come, a warning of what could happen if those who care about the borderlands are too complacent.

President Biden will inherit the 30-foot-alpine border walls that the Trump administration has run through lands sacred to the O'odham and Kumeyaay peoples have already inflicted terrible damage. Dynamite has ripped apart Monument Hill, despite the Tohono O'odham Nation telling Congress and Customs and Border Protection that there were burials in that location. Jacumba and the flank of Tecate Acme accept likewise been desecrated, despite Kumeyaay protests meant to protect the remains of their ancestors who are buried there. These walls are a connected desecration so long as they stand.

The walls that the Trump assistants blasted through the Peloncillo mountains, that scar the San Bernardino valley, and that cutting across wild landscapes all beyond the southern border, bring the movement of wildlife to a dead stop. For endangered species that live in the borderlands that means no admission to critical sources of food and water, and small-scale populations that may dice out for lack of genetic diversity. Walls that cut across Arizona'due south San Pedro river and intrude into the floodplain of Texas' Rio Grande will inevitably clog with debris during floods, dam water, then suffer catastrophic failure, with uprooted concrete and steel swept downriver. The chance to wild animals and watercourses volition non abate unless those walls are removed.

President Trump's border walls, like those erected by his predecessors, button border crossings into increasingly fell terrain. This was noted by the Government Accountability Office in the summer of 2006, shortly earlier the Secure Argue Deed passed, when they reported that border crossing deaths had doubled as the starting time border walls went upward in California. Border walls in California pushed crossings into the Arizona desert; subsequent border walls in Arizona rerouted crossings into Texas, which for the past few years has seen far more deaths than Arizona. In the commencement nine months of 2020, even though more than crossings (and, in recent years, more recorded deaths) occurred in Texas, the remains of more than border crossers were recovered in Arizona than in whatsoever of the prior 7 years. Border walls are the crusade of hundreds of deaths each year.

So long as border walls remain standing those harms will continue, and volition be compounded. The Biden-Harris administration should not, therefore, prefer the stance that the Obama-Biden administration did when they inherited ongoing border wall projects.

In an interview over the summer Joe Biden said that, "In that location volition non be another human foot of wall synthetic on my administration."

For those of us on the basis in border communities "not another pes" has a specific, concrete meaning. It is literal, non abstract. It does non exclude walls that are in the planning stage. It does not exclude contracts that have been awarded, but where work crews have all the same to dig trenches or pour concrete or erect steel bollards. It does non exclude walls that are part-finished, where one mile is upward but ix more are not. Non another human foot means not some other foot.

For that hope to hold truthful the Biden-Harris administration will need to instruct Justice Department lawyers to immediately finish all courtroom proceedings to condemn state for border walls. They volition need to cancel all ongoing border wall construction contracts. They will demand to immediately halt all border wall structure.

Doing and then would save hundreds of Texas landowners, stave off the devastation of wildlife refuges, and avoid the flooding of homes and farms along the Rio Grande.

But it would not repair the damage done by the walls that the Trump administration has already erected. That volition require the removal of border walls.

The Biden-Harris administration should tear down walls that desecrate sites that are sacred to the Kumeyaay, the O'odham, and other Native American nations. They should tear down the walls that dam the San Pedro River, and the spring-fed streams of the San Bernardino National Wildlife Refuge, and that intrude into the floodplain of the Rio Grande. They should tear downwards walls that rip apart endangered species habitat. They should tear down walls that cutting through border communities, casting prison-bar shadows on a kid's chamber window.

At the stop of the Obama-Biden administration there were 654 miles of border wall. At the end of the Biden-Harris administration in that location should be none.

Scott Nicol is the coauthor of a pair of reports almost border walls, titled Decease, Impairment and Failure: By, Nowadays, and Future Impacts of Walls on the U.S.-Mexico Edge . He is an Assistant Professor at S Texas Higher in McAllen, Texas.

Source: https://www.southernborder.org/the_obama_biden_administration_built_more_than_100_miles_of_border_wall_the_biden_harris_administration_should_tear_walls_down

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