DHS Secretary Noem issues waivers to expedite border wall construction in California

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is expanding border wall construction in California after announcing last month construction was beginning in Texas.

Under the Biden administration, record numbers of illegal foreign nationals poured into California and Texas, with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection San Diego Sector becoming an epicenter of illegal entry and crime, The Center Square first reported.

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem issued a waiver to enable the immediate construction of approximately 2.5 miles of new border wall barrier in California.

The waiver was issued under Section 102 of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996. It addresses environmental laws, including the National Environmental Policy Act, “that can stall vital projects for months or even years. This waiver clears the path for the rapid deployment of physical barriers where they are needed most, reinforcing our commitment to national security and the rule of law,” DHS said.

It includes projects previously identified in the CBP San Diego Sector and already funded through CBP fiscal 2020 and 2021 appropriations.

They include the San Diego Sector’s two-mile Jacumba Gap Wall Project; its 350-feet Smugglers Gulch Wall Project; and its 1,500-feet 4 Wall Project.

“Together, these projects will close critical gaps in the border barrier and enhance border security operations in the San Diego Sector,” DHS said.

Border wall construction and repairs in California also occurred under the Biden administration despite former President Joe Biden pledging in January 2021 to not build “another foot” of the border wall.

On his first day in office, Biden halted all border wall construction along the southwest border. Doing so cost taxpayers $6 million a day, and then $3 million a day, to not build the wall due to contractual obligations with the construction firm tasked with building it, The Center Square reported. Materials that had been purchased to build the wall were left to rust on the ground.

Biden also returned $2.2 billion in border wall funds to the Department of Defense, which was reallocated to fund 66 border security projects in 16 countries, three U.S. territories, and 11 states, The Center Square reported.

In 2023, CBP replaced a deteriorated border barrier at the Friendship Circle Project, including a “dilapidated primary and secondary border barrier along the border in San Diego.” The border barrier was a 30-foot double wall, which the Biden administration paused working on in 2022 “to conduct additional stakeholder outreach” and “engage with the community,” The Center Square reported.

CBP also identified 20 miles of border wall to build in Starr County, Texas, saying, “There is presently an acute and immediate need to construct physical barriers and roads in the vicinity of the border of the United States in order to prevent unlawful entries into the United States in the project areas,” The Center Square reported.

Reversing Biden administration policies, rebuilding and expanding border wall construction along the U.S.-Mexico border is a major part of President Donald Trump’s border security platform.

Within less than two months of being in office, the Trump administration awarded its first contract to construct new border wall and barriers in Hidalgo County, Texas, in the CBP Rio Grande Valley Sector, The Center Square reported.

The construction will occur in an area to close “critical openings in the border wall that were left incomplete due to cancelled contracts during the Biden Administration.”

The RGV Sector has historically been an area of heavy foot traffic of illegal border crossings and human and drug smuggling and trafficking. Closing this area of the wall and completing construction will support federal efforts “to impede and deny illegal border crossings and the drug- and human-smuggling activities of cartels,” CBP said.

Under Trump’s first administration, the 450th mile of border wall system, including physical infrastructure, access roads, lights, cameras and sensors, was completed by January 2021.