The construction of the wall on the southern border has been suspended, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) confirmed on Wednesday, one week after President Joe Biden signed an executive order ordering the halt.
“CBP, in coordination with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, has suspended wall construction projects except for activities that are safety related,” CBP said in a statement, according to Fox News. “All projects are in compliance with the President’s Proclamation.”
A Democratic lawmaker previously said that construction would seize by end-of-day Tuesday.
The Trump administration had obtained billions of dollars in funding to construct the wall. Over the last four years, amid legal and congressional battles, about 450 miles of wall were built along the border.
After Biden’s executive orders were issued, former Trump administration officials, including former Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Mark Morgan, said that the border wall is necessary to reduce illegal immigration.
“With the stroke of a pen, President Biden made this country less safe,” Morgan told Breitbart News on Jan. 23. “It’s pure politics over public safety.
“Look, I know what our team said to the transition team,” he said. “I know the facts and data and analysis that was provided. I know what they told them and gave them that showed that the wall works.”
The halt will mean the loss of some 5,000 construction jobs, according to Morgan.
“Conservatively, it’s going to cost about 5,000 jobs—construction workers—right now,” Morgan said. “It’s gonna cost them their livelihood.”
Biden signed the stop-work order on his first day in office.
His order stated: “Like every nation, the United States has a right and a duty to secure its borders and protect its people against threats. But building a massive wall that spans the entire southern border is not a serious policy solution. It is a waste of money that diverts attention from genuine threats to our homeland security.”
One of former President Donald Trump’s final trips was to the U.S.-Mexico border wall in Alamo, Texas. The wall was a signature policy position of his campaign in 2016 and became the flashpoint of resistance to his agenda for many Democrats in Congress. A standoff over funding for the wall resulted in the longest government shutdown in U.S. history.
“In every region that we’ve built the wall, illegal crossings and drug smuggling have plummeted, absolutely plummeted. In the Rio Grande Valley, crossings have dropped nearly 80 percent. In Yuma, Arizona, illegal entries have been slashed by 90 percent,” then-President Trump said in Alamo on Jan. 12.
Mimi Nguyen-Ly contributed to this report.
From The Epoch Times
