Build that wall!

The Biden administration announced Wednesday that 26 federal laws were waived to allow border wall construction in Texas, marking the administration’s first use of an executive power often used by former President Trump to fund projects along the southern border.

The waived laws will help expedite the construction of barriers and roads in Starr County, Texas, which is experiencing “high illegal entry,” the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a statement posted to the U.S. Federal Registry.

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“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,” DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in the statement.

  The Hill

He can just waive laws. It's good to be king, I guess.

Some of the waived federal laws include the Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act and Safe Water Drinking Act, to prevent lengthy reviews and lawsuits challenging the violation of such laws.

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“So interesting to watch Crooked Joe Biden break every environmental law in the book to prove that I was right when I built 560 miles (they incorrectly state 450 in story!) of brand new, beautiful border wall,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.

“As I have stated often, over thousands of years, there are only two things that have consistently worked, wheels, and walls!” he continued. “Will Joe Biden apologize to me and America for taking so long to get moving, and allowing our country to be flooded with 15 million illegals immigrants, from places unknown. I will await his apology!”

  The Hill

Yeah, don't bother.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 10/06/2023:

President Biden on Thursday defended plans for his administration to add to the wall along the U.S.-Mexico border while insisting that the wall is not an effective immigration tool.

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“The money was appropriated for the border wall. I tried to get them to reappropriate, to redirect that money. They didn’t. They wouldn’t,” he said. “In the meantime, there’s nothing under the law other than they have to use the money for what it was appropriated for. I can’t stop that.”

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Biden aides Thursday repeatedly sought to highlight that the funding being used to build several miles of additional wall was allocated before Biden took office.

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Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas pushed back against criticism that the announcement represented either a policy shift or a contradiction for the administration.

“There is no new Administration policy with respect to border walls. 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. The language in the Federal Register notice is being taken out of context and it does not signify any change in policy whatsoever,” Mayorkas said in a statement published on X.

  The Hill

That doesn't explain resuming deportation flights to Venezuela.

The U.S plans to resume repatriation flights directly to Venezuela immediately, the administration announced Thursday.

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Hundreds of thousands of migrants have made the dangerous journey through the Darién Gap jungle in Panama in order to reach the U.S.-Mexico border.

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So far in this year, some 400,000 migrants have crossed the Darién on their way to the United States, according to Panamanian officials — a sharp rise from the nearly 250,000 people who made the journey in all of 2022.

U.S. officials did not say how many repatriation flights to Venezuela the administration would operate or how many migrants would be on board those planes.

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The latest announcement comes just weeks after the Biden administration said it would grant work permits and temporary relief from deportation to an estimated 472,000 Venezuelans who were already in the U.S., following calls from Democrats in New York to help newly arrived migrants work legally.

But U.S. officials stressed that Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, is only available to Venezuelans who were already in the U.S. as of July 31.

  NPR