Trump Border Wall Post-Shutdown Discussion (Wall-Fight)

[Jabbyrwock]

2 hours ago, China said:

 

'Circular saw blades' divide controversial Rio Grande buoys installed by Texas governor

 

Locals and lawmakers have started getting a closer look at wrecking ball–size orange buoys Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) had installed — illegally, Mexico and the federal government say — along 1,000 feet of the Rio Grande river between Eagle Pass and Piedras Negras, Mexico. The controversial buoys are chained to the shallow bottom of the river with a net of cables, and you can't climb over them because they spin freely. 

 

To make sure would-be asylum seekers don't climb between them, Texas Public Radio's David Martin Davies reported after a kayak trip to the barrier, "there are also serrated metal plates that look like circular saw blades between each buoy." That detail also stuck with Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-Texas) and Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) when they visited Eagle Pass on Tuesday. Garcia said she was "appalled" by Abbott's "cruel and inhumane tactics" and unsettled by the "buoys' true danger and brutality."

 

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

At first I was like "Those look like sprockets or something used for deployment.  Maybe to cut river debris that gets caught in the barrier."  Then I went to companies, Cochrane, website and found another of their floating barriers:

[China]

Republicans Furious as Biden Sells Unused Trump Border Wall for Millions

 

Republicans expressed outrage at President Joe Biden on Saturday following a report that the federal government is allegedly selling millions of dollars of unused parts of the U.S.-Mexico border wall.

 

GovPlanet, an online marketplace for surplus government materials, recently oversaw the sale of hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of square structural tubes produced by Nucor Tubular that were apparently intended for former President Donald Trump's border wall, a key promise of his 2016 presidential campaign.

 

Trump has touted the completion of more than 450 miles of the wall during his tenure as president, though most of that was replacing existing structures. Only about 80 miles of primary and secondary barriers were built in areas where there were previously no structures. Biden, who has said a border wall is not a serious immigration solution, ended its construction when taking office in January 2021.

 

Since late July, $497,705 worth of these materials have been sold, according to GovPlanet.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Watchdog Finds Trump Border Wall Harmed Environment, Indigenous Sites, and Wildlife

 

A U.S. government watchdog agency on Thursday released a report exposing how former President Donald Trump's wall construction along the nation's border with Mexico negatively affected cultural and natural resources, as critics have long argued.

 

"The Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the Department of Defense (DOD) installed about 458 miles of border barrier panels across the southwest border from January 2017 through January 2021," according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) report. "Most (81%) of the miles of panels replaced existing barriers."

 

"The agencies installed over 62% of barrier miles on federal lands, including on those managed by the Department of the Interior," the report continues. "Interior and CBP officials, as well as federally recognized tribes and stakeholders, noted that the barriers led to various impacts, including to cultural resources, water sources, and endangered species, and from erosion."

 

The GAO document details how the border wall work caused severe erosion; disrupted natural water flows; damaged native plants while spreading invasive species; disturbed wildlife habitats and migration patterns, including for threatened and endangered species; and destroyed Indigenous burial grounds and sacred sites.

 

"From the start, President Trump's border wall was nothing more than a symbolic message of hate, aimed at vilifying migrants and bolstering extreme MAGA rhetoric," said U.S. House Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), who requested the report in May 2021. "This racist political stunt has been an ineffective waste of billions of American taxpayers' dollars—and now we know it has caused immeasurable, irreparable harm to our environment and cultural heritage as well."

 

"So much damage has been done, but we still have the opportunity to keep it from getting worse," he stressed. "Environmental restoration and mitigation work must be led by science and input from the right stakeholders, including tribes and communities along the border. So many corners were cut in building the wall—let's not repeat history by cutting corners in repairing the damage it caused."

 

"The report also makes clear that federal land management agencies, like the Interior Department and U.S. Forest Service, must be involved in environmental restoration and mitigation. These agencies have the utmost expertise and scientific knowledge of the borderlands," he added, calling on Congress to include funds for Interior and the Forest Service in the fiscal year 2024 budget "to make sure they have a strong leadership role going forward."

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

[China]

On 8/9/2023 at 7:08 PM, China said:

 

'Circular saw blades' divide controversial Rio Grande buoys installed by Texas governor

 

Locals and lawmakers have started getting a closer look at wrecking ball–size orange buoys Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) had installed — illegally, Mexico and the federal government say — along 1,000 feet of the Rio Grande river between Eagle Pass and Piedras Negras, Mexico. The controversial buoys are chained to the shallow bottom of the river with a net of cables, and you can't climb over them because they spin freely. 

 

To make sure would-be asylum seekers don't climb between them, Texas Public Radio's David Martin Davies reported after a kayak trip to the barrier, "there are also serrated metal plates that look like circular saw blades between each buoy." That detail also stuck with Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-Texas) and Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) when they visited Eagle Pass on Tuesday. Garcia said she was "appalled" by Abbott's "cruel and inhumane tactics" and unsettled by the "buoys' true danger and brutality."

 

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

5th Circuit rules Texas must remove river border buoys

 

A federal appeals court on Friday ruled that Texas must remove a series of buoys in its river border with Mexico that had generated a wave of backlash from immigration advocates and Democratic lawmakers.

 

In a 2-1 decision, a panel of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Texas’ request to overrule a federal district judge, who ordered the state in September to remove the controversial barrier. Judge Dana Douglas, an appointee of President Joe Biden, wrote in the panel’s majority opinion that the district judge had appropriately “considered the threat to navigation and federal government operations on the Rio Grande, as well as the potential threat to human life the floating barrier created.”

 

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott first deployed the barrier — a roughly 1,000-foot stretch of orange spherical buoys connected by heavy metal cables, complete with an anti-dive net beneath it — in early July and subsequently claimed that it had deterred thousands of people from crossing. The Department of Justice sued the state, arguing that it obstructed U.S. waterways in violation of federal environmental law.

 

In September, U.S. District Judge David A. Ezra, an appointee of Ronald Reagan, ruled that the buoys likely obstructed the flow of the Rio Grande in a way that required congressional authorization. That reasoning derives from an 1899 law called the Rivers and Harbors Appropriation Act, which requires federal approval for obstructions built in navigable waters.

 

Abbott said the circuit court’s decision was “completely wrong” and that he and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton would seek an immediate en banc hearing — which, if granted, would convene all the court judges to rehear the case.

 

“We’ll go to SCOTUS if needed to protect Texas from Biden’s open borders,” the governor wrote on X, the platform previously known as Twitter.

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

 

Edited December 2, 2023 by China

[Larry]

Like the Party of Fiscal Responsibility is going to let the fact that they keep getting told that their spending of taxpayer funds to do something that isn't within their powers (regulating immigration) isn't legal,  by court after court, stop them from spending more taxpayer dollars on judge shopping. 

[ixcuincle]

Migrants cross U.S. border in record numbers https://www.cbsnews.com/news/record-number-migrant-border-crossings-december-2023/

 

These dire scenes have become a daily occurrence near the Texas border town of Eagle Pass, now the busiest sector for illegal crossings alongside the remote Tucson sector in Arizona, where smugglers have been cutting parts of the border wall to let migrants into the U.S.

 

Undeterred by the razor wire assembled by Texas state officials, stretches of federal border wall and Biden administration policies designed to reduce illegal entries, migrants have been crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in unprecedented numbers in recent days.

[Larry]

... coming for the huge numbers of jobs that employers are giving them. 

[ixcuincle]

House speaker criticizes Biden immigration policies during border trip https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mike-johnson-us-border-migrants-remain-in-mexico/

 

The Remain in Mexico policy, officially called the Migrant Protection Protocols, was implemented by the Trump administration in early 2019 to deter migration to the U.S.-Mexico border. It required migrants seeking asylum in the U.S. to wait in Mexico until their court dates. 

 

Mr. Biden ended the policy soon after taking office, saying it was inhumane. After months of legal battles, federal courts ordered the government to reinstate it.

[hail2skins]

Filipowski on messaging regarding immigration:

 

https://www.meidastouch.com/news/democrats-dont-want-to-talk-about-the-border-so-ill-start