The Biden administration has formally announced plans to pull $2.2 billion of funding allocated by President Trump for construction of a wall on the US-Mexico border and spend it on other projects — even as the influx of illegal immigrants there continues to increase.
The Department of Homeland Security detailed plans Friday to redirect the construction cash — which it called “just one example of the prior Administration’s misplaced priorities and failure to manage migration in a safe, orderly, and humane way” — to the Pentagon for building projects on US military bases.
“Appropriated funds could also be used for mitigating some environmental damage caused by border wall construction,” the statement noted.
Trump oversaw the construction of more than 450 miles of border wall, a key campaign promise that Democrats bitterly opposed. Biden halted work on the project in one of the first acts of his presidency.
But the weeks since have seen a rush on the border, with nearly 460,000 arrests in the last three months. Authorities apprehended more than 180,000 migrants in May, a 21-year high.
The chaos has sparked furor in border states like Texas — where Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has vowed to build a border wall of its own in the face of Biden’s refusal to do so.
