House Republicans on Tuesday kept the pressure on President Joe Biden to do something — anything — about illegal immigration.
GOP lawmakers proposed a bill, entitled the Build the ‘Wall Now Act’ that would restart the construction of former President Donald Trump’s border wall.
The Washington Times reported that the bill if enacted, would jumpstart work on the wall within 24 hours.
It would also remove all legal “impediments” that blocked its progress by preventing the Biden administration from canceling any contracts related to border wall construction and upholding all negotiated border wall agreements.
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The bill also unlocks $2.1 billion in unspent funding for the project and mandates the administration to work with the National Border Patrol Council to increase agents’ safety.
The bill is sponsored by Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana and Sen. Ted Budd of North Carolina.
In a statement, Banks noted, “This administration is letting construction materials that have already been paid for sit and rot rather than finish building President Trump’s border wall and we are all paying the price.”
“For the same reason that Joe Biden had a fence put up around his State of the Union address, we need to finish building the wall on our southern border to keep American families and communities safe.”
Budd added in his own statement, “President Biden has created the worst border crisis in American history. Instead of taking steps to solve this crisis, the Biden administration has tried to run out the regulatory clock on border wall construction.”
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“The Build the Wall Now Act ends this administration’s excuses and forces them to restart wall construction immediately. It’s time for a comprehensive solution to end the Biden Border Crisis, and this bill does just that.”
Republican co-sponsors of note included Florida Reps. Anna Paulina Luna, Bill Posey, and Vern Buchanan.
Biden canceled funding for the wall on his first day in office, although Biden had no legal authority to unilaterally cancel funding contained in a law duly passed by Congress.
Since then, the project has been mired in federal environmental views and legal squabbling with border states.
The bill came one day after the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for stricter border enforcement, released a report saying that the Border patrol apprehended 128,000 illegals in January.
That was the fewest number in two years.
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As CIS noted, “By that standard, the Biden administration did well last month. But only by that standard.”
“Between April 2006 (when agents nabbed just short of 161,000 illegal migrants) and February 2021, apprehensions exceeded 128,000 in just one month: May 2019, when agents stopped fewer than 133,000 aliens who had crossed the border illegally,” CIS continued.
“In other words, there were only 3.4 percent fewer apprehensions last month than in the worst month for apprehensions at the Southwest border in the 13 years between May 2006 and May 2019.”
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