Biden Suspends Border Wall Building For Two Months

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

As promised, President Biden has stopped construction of the enormous wall concerning the U.S. and Mexico, Donald Trump’s signature venture. The new administration has called for a two-month suspension although border protection officers kind out what to do upcoming. Down in the borderlands, opponents of the wall are celebrating and say the combat might not be more than. NPR’s John Burnett reports.

JOHN BURNETT, BYLINE: The bulldozers and excavators, the concrete vans and drinking water haulers are now parked. The design crews are long gone. And hundreds of 30-foot-tall metal panels are stacked up and down the borderline.

LAIKEN JORDAHL: You know, we are cautiously optimistic. And we are surely celebrating. We all lifted a glass of Mezcal the night time that the purchase was issued.

BURNETT: That’s Laiken Jordahl with the Heart for Biological Range in Tucson.

JORDAHL: We’ve been battling this undertaking for many years. And this is the to start with time we have been ready to just acquire a stage back and have a deep sigh of aid.

BURNETT: Contractors have been able to place up 453 miles of wall around the earlier 4 decades. They fenced off additional than 50 percent of Arizona’s border with Mexico in the environmentally sensitive Sonoran Desert. Doing work 24/7, racing the clock right until inauguration day, crews were dynamiting mountainsides to make way for sections of wall that would most likely never get designed.

Gary Nabhan is a longtime ecologist and author in southern Arizona. He states in just just one shielded wilderness, Organ Pipe Cactus Nationwide Monument, the wall blocked 52 wildlife corridors. For activists like Nabhan, their energies now switch to restoration.

GARY NABHAN: Consider down the wall in the important corridors for wildlife that are usually watered locations, rivers and oases. It can be heading to just take a Herculean effort and hard work to undo the damage.

BURNETT: The Biden administration has not discovered the destiny of the border wall, one particular of the largest federal building projects in record. In the course of the 60-working day pause, officers prepare to analyze how to, quote, “redirect funding and repurpose contracts.” Practically 300 much more miles of wall have been contracted but continue being unfinished. The authorities could reportedly conserve $2.5 billion if design does not resume. But terminating contracts early also means spending tens of hundreds of thousands in cancellation charges. Most landowners on the Rio Grande by no means needed a big safety fence to start off with.

Beto Cardenas is a attorney for Sacred Heart Kid’s Property, an orphanage in Laredo whose residence was in the path of a barrier.

BETO CARDENAS: Certainly, provided the actuality that there has been a pause, we would hope that the Biden administration would see that there is just not a want for a actual physical barrier.

BURNETT: Cardenas, who’s labored on Capitol Hill as an immigration skilled, claims unspent resources may perhaps be redirected to a diverse form of border security, this sort of as substantial-tech autonomous surveillance towers.

CARDENAS: I would assume that there would be an financial commitment in all sorts of other personnel, infrastructure and technological know-how, steps necessary to shield the Southwestern border.

BURNETT: Property homeowners opposed to the wall have long taken care of that Customs and Border Protection could substitute engineering for steel and concrete. But even that would operate into opposition from activists like Tricia Cortez with the No Border Wall Coalition in Laredo.

TRICIA CORTEZ: We never want the course to transfer from a actual physical wall to a digital wall and continue on down this route of militarizing the border.

BURNETT: Biden’s Homeland Stability Division is prepared to mothball the wall and examine other protection actions, according to Agent Henry Cuellar, a Laredo Democrat. He has almost 200 border miles in his district. He states he was in touch with an executive at DHS final 7 days.

HENRY CUELLAR: You know, I do not like the wall. But we acquired to use other factors – cameras, know-how, drones and all that. And I comprehend some people today do not want anything. They will not want cameras. They will not want lights. They really don’t want underground sensors. And I’m sorry, but we have a obligation to protected the border.

BURNETT: DHS confirms every wall development venture has been suspended. When requested what will come upcoming, the White Property isn’t really indicating still. John Burnett, NPR Information. Transcript offered by NPR, Copyright NPR.