The Biden administration has begun the construction of levees along the border to fill gaps left open because of President Joe Biden’s order to halt work on former President Donald Trump’s border wall.
The administration will fill in holes in the levee system along a 13.4-mile stretch of the border in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas that were created as part of border wall construction in the area. Trump’s wall, which now runs along most of the stretch, included both a lower section consisting of levees to prevent flooding and an upper section of slatted metal wall to prevent migration. The Biden administration will be building out just the levee part in the areas where the wall was unfinished so that the entire 13.4 miles is interconnected, in response to residents’ fears about flooding.
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“In support of CBP’s border infrastructure program, USACE has resumed DHS-funded design & construction support on approx. 13.4 miles of levee in the Rio Grande Valley that were partially excavated or at various levels of construction when work on the wall was paused for review,” the Army Corps of Engineers said in a statement.
An ACE spokesman told the Washington Examiner in an email that the administration has “started critical work to repair the Rio Grande Valley’s flood levee, which was excavated to make way for border wall. This remediation work will not involve expanding border barrier.”
Southeastern Texas is the only place where the wall doubles as a levee system. Because of flooding in the region, government planners took longer to consider designs for a wall that could double as a device capable of holding back water from the nearby river.
Builders blew up portions of land so that vehicles could gain access to the riverfront. When wall construction was halted in January, the gaps were not filled.
Wall progress in the Rio Grande Valley had been slower than in other regions along the border. Seven miles were completed as of November 2020. Another 103 miles were funded and ready to go up, which would have been in addition to an existing 55 miles of barrier. Border Patrol agents in the valley are responsible for 277 miles of largely overgrown brush that runs along the international boundary river.
Border wall projects were undertaken in all four states that span the 2,000-mile border with Mexico. No projects were started on the Canadian border because illegal crossings are rare.
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While Biden stopped wall construction following an outcry from his party during the Trump administration, government-funded border wall construction is nothing new. Projects took off in the 1990s, when former President Bill Clinton approved a Border Patrol hiring spree and wall projects.
