Texas takes over building Donald Trump’s US-Mexico border wall

Former US President Donald Trump’s much-spruiked border wall is back under construction after a flood of unauthorised immigrants compelled Texas to act.

An unfinished section of the border wall in Texas. Construction is again under way after a flood of illegal immigrants from Mexico. Picture: Brandon Bell/Getty

Donald Trump’s controversial border wall with Mexico, which Joe Biden cancelled in one of his first decisions as President, is under construction again after a flood of unauthorised immigrants across the southern US border compelled Texas to finish the job.

The second most populous state, whose long border with Mexico meant it bore the brunt of unauthorised arrivals, began building the wall on Saturday, six months after announcing the plan, amid a year-long standoff with the Biden administration over immigration.

“Texas is taking what truly is unprecedented action: a state to build a wall on our border, to safeguard the sovereignty of our state and of our nation,” Republican Governor Greg Abbott said in Rio Grande City in front of construction crews and huge steel wall panels.

“This is needed for one single reason: because the Biden ­administration has failed to do its job as required by the constitution, as required by laws passed by congress, to enforce the immigration laws of the US.”

Texas Governor Greg Abbott

The southern border has ­become a political deadweight for Democrats, the White House and in particular the popularity of Vice-President Kamala Harris, who the President in March appointed “border tsar” to find solutions to the influx.

National polls show the southern border consistently to be among Americans’ top few concerns.

The number of unauthorised border crossings last month rose 5 per cent to 173,620, dashing hopes the steady monthly ­decline that began in July, when arrivals reached a record high of 214,000, would continue.

“Already this year there have been over 1.2 million people ­apprehended coming over the border illegally,” Mr Abbott said, noting that the influx of illicit drugs was as much a problem as the immigrants themselves,

The main cause of death in the US for 18- to 45-year-olds was not “Covid, or cancer, or car crashes, but fentanyl”, the Governor said, referring to the highly addictive narcotic.

Texan Democrat congressman Henry Cuellar slammed the wall extension as a “14th century solution” motivated by politics and questioned how much of the wall the state could complete, given former president Trump “only built 50 miles in four years”.

“What we need to do is when we catch them deport people who aren’t supposed to be here, and get Mexico and Guatemala to stop people,” he said.

The Trump administration, in what was the signature policy of the former President, built 84km of fencing in areas where none had existed before and ­replaced almost 645km of wall along the nearly 3220km border.

The Texas Governor has accused President Joe Biden of not doing enough to stop illegal immigration. Picture: AFP

The Biden administration ­reversed Trump immigration polices it considered inhumane, including the practice of turning away unaccompanied children and forcing arrivals to wait in Mexico while their applications were heard. Since January more than three times as many immigrants have turned up compared to the same periods in 2020 and 2019, prompting a national debate over whether “push or pull factors” were mainly responsible.

“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 Joe Biden said in January.

The Texas Governor said the federal government had refused to let the state use or purchase left over steel from the Trump administration’s construction plans, leaving mounds of steel strewn across the border.