President Joe Biden said Thursday that he doesn’t believe border walls work, even as his administration said it will waive 26 laws to build additional border barriers in the Rio Grande Valley amid heightened political pressure over migration.
According to a notice posted to the Federal Register Wednesday, construction of the wall will be paid for using already appropriated funds earmarked specifically for physical border barriers. The administration was under a deadline to use them or lose them. But the move comes at a time when a new surge of migrants is straining federal and local resources and placing heavy political pressure on the Biden administration to address a sprawling crisis, and the notice cited “high illegal entry.”
Biden – who, as a candidate, vowed that there will “not be another foot” of border wall constructed on his watch – defended the decision to reporters Thursday, saying that he tried to get the money appropriated for other purposes but was unsuccessful.
“I’ll answer one question on the border wall: The border wall – the money was appropriated for the border wall. I tried to get them to reappropriate it, to redirect that money. They didn’t, they wouldn’t.
And in the meantime, there’s nothing under the law other than they have to use the money for what it was appropriated. I can’t stop that,” Biden told reporters in the Oval Office.
Asked whether he believes the border wall works, Biden answered, “No.”
“I’ll answer one question on the border wall: The border wall – the money was appropriated for the border wall. I tried to get them to reappropriate it, to redirect that money. They didn’t, they wouldn’t.
I would guess that "use it or lose it" must have some special meaning in the following context, right?
According to a notice posted to the Federal Register Wednesday, construction of the wall will be paid for using already appropriated funds earmarked specifically for physical border barriers. The administration was under a deadline to use them or lose them.
I'm going to have to go figure that out I suppose.
Wait… so all he had to do was not use the funds?
"he" isn't using it. Border patrol is. I'm unsure if he can walk in and say they can't spend their budget, but I'm pretty sure the president don't hold budgetary power.
Last I checked, the border patrol is part of the Department of Homeland Security, which is run by the Executive Branch.
So your idea is for the president to order the head of DHS to break the law. #lawandorder
"“We had no choice,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Thursday during a press conference in Mexico. “It was mandated by law. We requested that Congress rescind the direction. It did not do so. We, of course, must follow the law. Our policy remains as it was since day one. We are opposed to the construction of the wall.”"
Image still claiming "just following orders" as an acceptable defence. Then imagine defending its use… 🤦♀️
That’s a laudable position, and very easy to espouse if you’ve never been the one in the position who has to put themselves in harm’s way to do good.
As a government employee I’ve often thought about whistleblowing issues that arise during my work, but if I lose my job and am blacklisted from government work then I’ll likely not be employed for a long time, meaning I’ll no longer be able to financially support my disabled mother and her quality of life will drastically reduce - she may even suffer early death without the services she needs that I pay for. These issues are rarely as simple as you’re portraying it to be.
Make as many excuses for yourself as you like, if your avoiding to whistleblow costs lives, or worse, you blindly "following orders" kills someone or contributes to their death, you become complicit, no matter how many dependants you have, or how uncomfortable the reality makes you.
“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor"
You want to talk about being in a "position"? Well I'm not going to doxx myself for your benefit (lets just say I've been in plenty such position, and have flat out refused plenty of immoral orders) but speaking of grandparents, I would have suggested you said this enabling bullshit to mine, who survived the holocaust - surely some of those Nazis also had a disabled dependant at home too (if they were able to hide them from Aktion T4 - would you follow those orders too? Or since that almost directly impacts you, you wouldn't? Funny how that works…), and kids, and they needed the money, and they just need to survive so it's ok to harm others, who, what - don't?
You not wanting to admit to yourself that you prioritise your own comfort over the lives of others, doesn't change that reality.
And believe me - you'd get significantly more support and solidarity from a community you defended, than one you selfishly betrayed. Loosing your job to whistleblowing wouldn't leave you as destitute as you like to tell yourself it would, but it sure does ease that tiny little conscience eh…
You are comparing the killing of millions with unnecessary government spending.
It's interesting to see how much you value money.
That also caught my attention, and I think it's the people who depend on this funding for their job who have to spend it or lose it to another program.
And these people are legally allowed to use these funds to build a wall.
It's still not clear to me why having to waive all these wasn't enough to stop it.
It's legal for those laws to be trivially waived by border patrol because of the Secure Fences act. Again, not the president waiving things. It's people who work in the government doing tasks that they're allowed to do.
Now, fuck that specific act. It should be repealed.
26 laws could stand in the way. Democrats temporarily forgot how to obstruct.
Obstruction implies there was any effort required here. Even just doing nothing would have been preferable to actively waiving environmental protections using the same powers they complained about Trump abusing.
Don’t forget, Dems and Pubs are basically on the same team: greedy fucks who benefit from having their hands in corporate money and corruption.
So wouldn’t be surprised if this is one if those times where somehow, by a miracle the Dems and Pubs agree on something and decide it’s okay to build a huge fuck-off wall that probably won’t work long-term anyways.
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Which has nothing to do with anything I said, but aight. In fact, the fact you had to defend your sexuality in a first-world country like the US is what’s so fucked up in the first place. The Netherlands were basically the first to make gay marriage legal in the 2000s, and a decent chunk of Europe also showed more support towards the LGTBQ community long before the US legalized gay marriage in all the states in 2015. Keep in mind that the places I mentioned tend to be actually left-leaning to a degree.
My point is that the two US parties are more concerned with making sure the corporate owners get their way without too much hassle from the general populace - the far-right one just says the quiet parts out loud, while the center-right party gives you verbal support but most of the time doesn’t do shit because they like money, too. I mean, look at this actual topic here - building a border wall for Mexico has been a popular topic for Republicans… but suddenly the Democratic president can’t say no to this even though building this would bypass 26 different laws, which in other words, are 26 different reasons to not fucking do it if they didn’t want to like the president claims?
Democrats want to keep the status quo and placate people with just enough bullshit (which, I’ll be honest, I 100% think they would be fine with not supporting LGTBQ communities if we, the people, would not fucking riot and oust them for stuff that should’ve been fine from the get-go decades ago), and the Republicans are now just trying to see how far they can push corpofascism before we, the people, decide to put a stop to that shit.
There’s a difference between “these two are basically the same” and “one is bad while the other is worse”. Enlightened centrism does no one any good.
I say they’re basically the same because one party allows the other to apparently undermine the US Constitution to a pretty far degree. The Dems aren’t pushing back against the Pubs on their batshit insane abortion laws, child labor law regressions, and whatever the fuck DeSantis is doing in Florida - they’re just sort of going along with it. “Oh, it’s just them being far-right - that’s just the silly old Republicans!” The two US parties are, at best, far-right and center-right - so they ultimately have some of the same interests of keeping businesses and corporate lobbyists happy.
Hell, it’s ultimately not a right-or-left thing - it’s a class thing. Both the Dems and the Pubs now are the rich “aristocracy” being bribed left and right by the fucking corporate owners, while they all fuck over the rest of us working class people for a quick buck. Remember when people were blasting Republicans for taking PPP loans for either their own personal business or literally just for profit? Turns out Dems were doing it too, but because Dems feed just the right amount of bullshit and the Republicans were (and still are) saying and doing some insane shit, we let it slide. So I say they are the same because they both do some shady shit for corporate lobbyists and want to personally benefit whenever they can - if the Dems truly cared about being more left, then they would have let Bernie be the presidential candidate instead of Hillary, and they would be more accepting of AOC instead of weirdly ostracizing her.
ThEy'Re bOtH tHe SaMe!!!
Such a shit take.
The wall is a stupid ass idea. Maybe this is a compromise they made with Abbot to stop putting razor wire in the Rio, and if that's the case the wall is definitely better than getting shredded by razor wire and drowning, but we shouldn't be compromising with terrorists in the first place.
Environmental damage from building a wall: Large and temporary.
Environmental damage from letting people cross: Small but on-going.
Animals exist, you know. Environmental damage from a wall comes from much more than just the construction phase. Environmental damage from a wall is also ongoing
So is leaving all your belongings midway because you don't have enough water because the republican banned water jugs drops.
People cause damage. The sooner we can stop people from being in the nature reserve, the sooner the damage stops.
I don’t agree with the border wall but the US needs to do something to stop the massive illegal immigration problem.
I know it is unpopular folks but its time.
1)The best argument against the death penalty is wrongful conviction.
1a) Incomplete evidence can lead to a wrongful conviction.
1b)White collar crime has the best paper trail and most solid evidence.
2)One murder can lead to the death penalty.
2a)corporations kill or let die hundreds and thousand of people die.
There for it is ethical to kill CEOs through lethal injection.
Totally reasonable approach. I don’t think that would fully stop it but it would certainly help
Agriculture in the US would literally collapse in a matter of weeks. Just like… make legal immigration easier.
Agricultural seasonal worker visas are a thing. It's even the one group of visas that has no limit on numbers other than what employers are willing to hire, and they're more protected than a lot of other workers.
It's just cheaper to skirt all that and hire those who have immigrated illegally.
The issue with the protections is that they’re tied to the visa, which can be rescinded by the owner of the farm at a whim. Which is to say, there aren’t any protections unless the owner of the farm decides to adhere to them.
Your second point is entirely true.
The issue with the protections is that they’re tied to the visa, which can be rescinded by the owner of the farm at a whim. Which is to say, there aren’t any protections unless the owner of the farm decides to adhere to them.
Like any work visa, it's tied to having the job. Unlike most work visas, it has additional requirements for the one hiring.
Your second point is entirely true.
Of course it is. It's always going to be cheaper to hire someone at the cheapest price available than to also have to house and feed them on your dime in addition to pay.>>
Easiest fix is repairing the deeply broken immigration system so that legal immigration becomes a real possibility, like it used to be.
Yep, totally agree. That is part of the solution
Illegal immigration's main impact is monetary, so it costs the country money, but the reason why illegal immigration costs money is because people dodge systems when illegal.
It's a deep irony that the easier you make immigration, the less it costs the country.
The reasonable solution to the costs of illegal immigration isn't to reduce immigration but increase it. After all, immigrants benefit the economy more than natural born citizens do, as you don't have to invest in giving birth, raising and educating them and they pay fees to live here, and they start paying tax from day 1 as opposed to having the first ~16-21 years tax free.
What are the requirements one must meet to legally immigrate to the US? Which of those requirements need to be modified to make it easier?
Having gone through the process myself, many steps are completely opaque. You create a huge bundle of papers, pay a large amount of money on an irregular schedule and wait a long time, and they are lots of rules about what you can and can't do before, during and after.
I nearly got denied because I took a year long course of antidepressants that finished 6 years before my application when they read my medical history.
Awesome, congratulations in getting through the system, that is honestly a lot of things you mentioned.
More follow up questions if you have time:
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how much money did you pay in total?
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are there english language requirements?
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are there American history tests one must pass?
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how many years from start to finish did this process take?
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was the paper work mostly submitted through the mail or was there a online system that could be used?
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you mentioned rules about what you can/cannot do, what are some examples of ridiculous rules of things you cannot do before?
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what would be the top three reasonable changes to the system that would make it easier for folks?
Thanks for the conversation!
the answer to all these questions is "it depends" - each that requires paragraphs of explanations depending on which of the several visas you apply for , which also have sub-sets of flavors of Visa
you've mistaken immigration for work authorization, and both with citizenship in some of these questions.
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how much money? it was roughly $1000/month for several months but not all of this is payable to USCIS, and some is paid electronically and some by checks that don't clear for months, so the logistical challenges there are manifold
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English language requirements: generally no if you have a translator
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examples of rules: traveling, Healthcare regarding new medications, having to attend dates and times of meetings in both countries, engaging with political organizations
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the top change is to create a new Visa that allows "illegal" immigrants to become legal
Dang, not the expected response to be honest
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I thought the core issue was asylum seekers rather than illegal immigrants.
Do we? What's the actual issue with immigrants? They keep the economy going.
illegal immigrants*
Whatever you want to label them they aren't a major issue. We are all illegal immigrants unless you're native
It’s not my label, it is the country’s label. You live here (I suspect) so therefore this is your government’s label, not mine. You can argue about this all you want but it must be addressed.
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