On Thursday, October 5, American President Joe Biden reiterated that he still doesn't believe in the effectiveness of a border wall with Mexico, vaunted by his predecessor Donald Trump. At the start of his term, the Democratic leader put a stop to the use of funds earmarked for the Corps of Engineers to build it. While he is denying any turnaround on the issue, his actions give a different impression, after he decided to use a budget line specifically allocated in 2019 by Congress to continue this undertaking. There is nearly $200 million (€188 million) left to be used before the end of 2023. This leaves the White House claiming to be avoiding waste, as Congress has refused to repurpose this money for other projects.

The announcement had gone unnoticed in June, but the details published on Thursday come at a time of deep migration and political crisis, putting the administration on the defensive. The controversy also coincides unhappily with Thursday's visit to Mexico by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, accompanied by a very large delegation of US officials. Among them was Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, who stressed: "From day one, this administration has made clear that a border wall is not the answer. That remains our position and our position has never wavered."

Release of the funds would enable the construction of barriers and roads in the Rio Grande Valley, Texas, over a distance of around 32 kilometers, to limit the massive influx of undocumented migrants. "There is presently an acute and immediate need to construct physical barriers (...) to prevent unlawful entries," Mayorkas explained in an announcement in the US Federal Register. To this end, 26 federal and environmental laws could be suspended, to speed up implementation.

It's a way of alienating both organizations concerned with the preservation of endangered species and the left wing of the Democratic Party, concerned with the rights of migrants. Maxwell Frost, a young member of the House of Representatives from Florida, said he was "deeply disappointed," believing that "building a border wall is equivalent to sticking our heads in the sand." Meanwhile, Trump was triumphant. "As I have stated often, over thousands of years, there are only two things that have consistently worked, wheels, and walls!" he wrote on his Truth Social network. Under his presidency, 737 kilometers of barriers and various forms of separation were built, at a cost of $16 billion. But this was mainly to replace existing structures. Only 75 kilometers of new walls were built. Contrary to Trump's repeated assertions, the Mexican authorities did not spend a single dollar on this work. What's more, long stretches of the nearly 3,200-kilometer border remain uncovered.

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