Day one of the Biden presidency was bad news for thousands of working class families all over Texas.
Most conservative estimates suggest the border wall created over 10,000 jobs.
Shortly after being sworn as the 46th president, Joe Biden signed an executive order to end the declaration of a national emergency that authorized former President Donald Trump to divert funds from other military construction projects to finance the construction of a new border wall.
Trump’s emergency declaration was set to expire in February, but before leaving office, he extended the declaration an additional year.
“Like every nation, the United States has a right and a duty to secure its borders and protect its people against threats,” reads the new executive order from Biden. “But building a massive wall that spans the entire southern border is not a serious policy solution. It is a waste of money that diverts attention from genuine threats to our homeland security.”
“The proclamation directs an immediate pause in wall construction projects to allow a close review of the legality of the funding and contracting methods used, and to determine the best way to redirect funds that were diverted by the prior Administration to fund wall construction,” stated Biden’s transition team before the inauguration.
Though reports project that the U.S. government could save a large portion of the $3.3 billion in funds directed towards the project, Mark Morgan, the acting Customs and Border Protection commissioner under the Trump administration, warned that the government would lose money due to fees from contractors and the waste of purchased materials.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers estimates that the fees from contract cancellations could add up to $700 million.
Construction work is under way near Naco, Arizona, on Oct. 6, 2020, to build a border wall between the United States and Mexico. (Photo by Kyodo News via Getty Images)