Would Biden really try to tear down the border wall?

Few things drove liberals crazier during President Trump’s 2016 campaign and the past four years of his administration than his supporters’ urgent desire to see him build a wall on the southern border. The chants of “Build the Wall!” echoed at every rally and you could almost see the steam figuratively rising off the heads of his detractors. But despite intense opposition from the Democrats and endless lawsuits, construction finally began. Some significant sections of new or improved barriers now stand along the Mexican border, though much remains to be done.

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But now, barring some reversal through the courts and/or recounts, the President’s time in office will be done and Joe Biden will be in charge. This has led some progressives (who will likely never find a cure for TDS) to fondly dream of Uncle Joe not only halting construction on the wall but tearing it down to literally erase one of Trump’s accomplishments. That seems to be the case with this recent editorial from Erik Ortiz. (He’s a staff writer for NBC News, “focusing on racial injustice and social inequality.”) And what justification could a President Biden use for such an investment of taxpayer money? The wall is now supposedly “a biohazard.”

But with Democrat Joe Biden’s projected win over President Donald Trump, Andrews and environmental activists and conservationists are pinning their hopes on a new administration’s reversing certain policies, halting construction and going as far as to rip down the new sections of border wall…

Opposition to the wall in Arizona, which led to protests, road blockades and federal agents’ use of tear gas on members of the Tohono O’odham Nation last month, is emblematic of battles waged across the country to preserve ecologically fragile areas and stave off projects that could do irreparable environmental and cultural damage, environmental justice advocates say.

Over the past four years, the Trump administration has approved oil and gas leasing in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, rolled back protections to allow commercial fishing at a marine conservation area off the New England coast and pushed for federal regulatory changes that have benefited industrial companies, including a mining project that environmentalists fear could jeopardize Georgia’s Okefenokee Swamp, the largest national wildlife refuge in the eastern United States.

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There’s plenty more where that came from. To hear Ortiz tell the story, Trump’s wall has disrupted the migratory paths of various animals, torn down some cacti and impacted the lives of various species of birds and butterflies. (If only the birds and butterflies had some way of lifting themselves up into the air so they could go over the wall. But I digress.)

This argument might hold a bit more water were it not for a few basic facts. First of all, there were already hundreds of miles of border walls, fences and other barriers along the border before Trump arrived at the White House. Some of them were constructed or improved while Barack Obama was in the Oval Office. Where were all the objections to such construction then? Having a barrier intended to prevent the entry of illegal aliens into our country wasn’t some idea that Donald Trump dreamed up out of the blue. He was simply looking to finish the job and improve the system.

Another objection to these construction efforts was the money involved. While barely a drop in the massive federal bucket, liberals still bemoaned the spending in a rare moment of fiscal conservatism on their part. But now, I assume that Ortiz and his friends have no problem at all appropriating the money it would take to tear the wall down, right? Hey… as long as it’s Joe Biden doing the spending, everything is all rainbows and unicorns I suppose.

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Of course, they won’t want to tear down the entire wall. Just the sections built while Donald Trump was in office. I’m sure the rest of it is fine.

In reality, every section of the wall that goes up makes it easier for border enforcement officials to do their jobs and harder for the coyotes to find places to sneak their illicit customers into the country. Even if you objected to the wall going up, spending taxpayer money to tear it down is simply an exercise in making the country less safe and charging the taxpayers for the privilege of doing so. There’s nothing noble about this sort of proposition. It’s just the seething hatred of the President driving his detractors to try to erase every memory of his presidency. It’s petty and doesn’t present a good look for anyone suggesting such a thing.

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David Strom 3:30 PM | December 04, 2024
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