From: lessgovt@gmail.com   
      
   U.S. Will Build Stretch of Border Wall and Begin Deportations to Venezuela   
   By New York Times, Oct. 5, 2023   
   The Biden administration on Thursday said it would expand Trump’s wall on   
   the Mexican border and begin deporting thousands of Venezuelans in an effort   
   to cut down on the migrant surge that shows no signs of abating.   
      
   The moves are an about-face by the White House, which is under political   
   pressure to stem the flow of people. Criticism is intensifying among   
   Republicans as well as Democratic leaders in New York, Chicago and elsewhere   
   who say the influx is overwhelming    
   their ability to house and feed the migrants.   
      
   During his campaign for president, Biden denounced efforts to build a wall   
   along the U.S.-Mexico border, saying it was “not a serious policy   
   solution.” But on Thursday the administration said it was waiving more than   
   20 federal laws and regulations    
   to allow for the construction of physical barriers along a portion of the   
   border in South Texas, near McAllen.   
      
   In announcing that the U.S. govt would begin deporting Venezuelans who enter   
   the U.S. unlawfully, the Biden administration was reversing a policy of not   
   sending migrants back to the troubled South American country, where years of   
   political unrest and    
   economic turmoil have driven millions of people to flee. Last month alone,   
   50,000 migrants from that country crossed the southern border, a record   
   number, and they now represent the second largest nationality group, dwarfed   
   only by Mexicans.   
      
   The announcement about deportations came only three weeks after the   
   administration granted a temporary legal status to hundreds of thousands of   
   Venezuelan migrants who had already entered the U.S. unlawfully. That was an   
   effort to make it easier for    
   those migrants to work and, in doing so, reduce the strain on New York and   
   Chicago, which have struggled to serve thousands of migrants, many from   
   Venezuela.   
      
   But some experts said that in granting Temporary Protected Status, or T.P.S.,   
   to a large number of Venezuelans, the government risked encouraging even more   
   migration from the country, and the deportation announcement on Thursday   
   appeared to be the    
   administration’s answer to those concerns.   
      
   On a day when 3 of Biden’s cabinet officials were in Mexico to meet with   
   President Obrador, the news about the border wall and deportations underlined   
   the challenges Biden and his administration were wrestling with, as   
   humanitarian crises around the    
   world drive more migrants to the U.S. border while a deeply divided Congress   
   leaves in place an outdated, dysfunctional immigration system.   
      
   In defending the decision to move forward with a segment of the wall,   
   Alejandro N. Mayorkas, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said   
   in a statement that the work was a legal requirement stemming from   
   appropriations during the Trump    
   administration. But Biden still finds himself helping to build a border wall   
   that was one of the signature objectives of his predecessor, even as he   
   maintains that such barriers are ineffective in curbing unlawful entry from   
   Mexico.   
      
   In a notice published in the Federal Register on Thursday, Mayorkas said that   
   easing the laws was necessary to expedite construction of sections of a border   
   wall in South Texas, where thousands of migrants have been crossing the Rio   
   Grande daily to reach    
   U.S. soil.   
      
   “There is presently an acute and immediate need to construct physical   
   barriers and roads in the vicinity of the border of the United States in order   
   to prevent unlawful entries into the U.S.,” Mayorkas said, adding that   
   waiving laws and other    
   requirements was necessary to complete the work more quickly.   
      
   The U.S. Border Patrol in the Rio Grande Valley, where the new stretch of the   
   wall is to be built, had encountered more than 245,000 migrants who had   
   entered the country between ports of entry, or unlawfully, in the 2023 fiscal   
   year that ended Sept. 30,    
   the notice said.   
      
   It added that construction would be built with funds appropriated by Congress   
   in 2019 for wall construction in the Rio Grande Valley. That appropriation   
   followed a disaster declaration by the Trump administration amid soaring   
   numbers of border crossers.   
      
   Biden said on Thursday that he had no choice but to use the money for the wall.   
      
   “The money was appropriated for the border wall. I tried to get them to   
   reappropriate, to redirect that money. They didn’t. They wouldn’t,” he   
   told reporters, apparently referring to Congress.   
      
   Asked whether he thought the border wall was effective, he replied, “no.”   
      
   In January 2021, on Biden’s first day in office, the administration revoked   
   the disaster declaration and halted construction. In a proclamation, he said   
   that, “Building a massive wall that spans the entire southern border is not   
   a serious policy    
   solution.”   
      
   Nearly $200 million out of the $1.375 billion that Congress designated for   
   barriers in the Rio Grande Valley was still available, and the money had to be   
   used by the end of the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, according to the law.   
      
   As the number of migrants entering the United States has soared in recent   
   months, Biden has come under fire from Republican leaders, who have made   
   immigration a core issue in the presidential race, and he has faced increasing   
   pressure from mayors of some    
   Democratic-led cities.   
      
   “Given the high flow of people, and the political pressure from the right   
   and left, Biden had to be more assertive on enforcement,” said Muzaffar   
   Chishti, a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan   
   think tank.   
      
   “Even his own party has been asking for strong measures,” he said.   
      
   The pace of unlawful entries plummeted in the spring after the end of a   
   pandemic-era measure that allowed the government to swiftly deport migrants.   
   But numbers rebounded over the summer, and on some days have doubled the 4,900   
   unlawful crossings a day    
   that were recorded in mid-April.   
      
   This year, more than 380,000 people bound for the U.S. have crossed the   
   Darién Gap — a jungle straddling Colombia and Panama — and more were   
   expected to come in October, the most popular month for crossings.   
      
   In a bid to stem the tide, the Biden administration over the past year has   
   created new policies to provide legal pathways for Venezuelans, enabling them   
   to apply for legal entry into the country if they have a financial sponsor.   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)