whine bitches
2023-11-04 09:44:38 UTC
In late September, the Biden administrations Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) awarded a $229 million contract for border wall
construction in Starr County to SLSCO Ltd., a contractor that also built
wall for the Trump administration and is presently doing so for Texas
Governor Greg Abbott. Starr County, a largely rural and flood-prone area
in Texas Rio Grande Valley with a few towns abutting the river, currently
hosts just a few short stretches of border fencing. SLSCO is a Galveston-
based firm run by a family of GOP political donors.
Bidens decision to build roughly 20 miles of border wall in Starr County
made international news early last month when DHS waived a suite of
environmental and historic preservation laws in order to speed
construction. The move suggested a stark departure from Bidens promise,
made during his 2020 campaign, that there would not be another foot of
wall built on his watch. In reality, Biden continued building a shorter
version of Trumps wall in parts of South Texas and has been increasing
the height of fencing in Friendship Park in Southern California. But last
month marked the first time Biden used DHS sweeping waiver authoritya
relic of a Bush-era act of Congressand the Starr County project is the
presidents most significant border wall undertaking to date.
The flurry of press coverage of the October 5 DHS waiver overlooked the
fact that the administration had already issued a construction contract
for the project about a week prior. Some trade publications stated no
contractor had been identified. Under the Trump administration, Customs
and Border Protection (CBP) typically issued press releases when wall
contracts were awarded, but no press release appears to have been issued
in this case. (A press release was issued in late June announcing the 20-
mile project.) The Texas Observer located the contract on the website
usaspending.gov, and a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) spokesperson
confirmed the contract and its purpose.
THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATIONS DECISION TO PLOW WILDLIFE-KILLING BORDER WALLS
THROUGH SOME OF THE BEST REMAINING HABITAT IN THE RIO GRANDE VALLEY IS A
NATIONAL DISGRACE.
Clearly DHS under the Biden administration has no more respect for border
residents than it did under the Trump administration, said Scott Nicol, a
longtime anti-wall activist and researcher and board member of the Valley-
based Friends of the Wildlife Corridor, upon learning of the contract.
Biden should use the remaining funds to mitigate some of the damage
border walls have already done, not waste hundreds of millions of dollars
to inflict more destruction.
On October 17, a CBP official did describe the contract in a declaration
filed in an ongoing lawsuit in which the State of Texas and other parties
are attempting to force Biden to broadly resume constructing Trumps
border wall. This declaration was reported behind a hard paywall in
Law360. The declaration states the contract is for 17 miles of new border
barrier in Starr. According to usaspending.gov, the deal is for $229
million, yielding a per-mile cost of about $13.5 million. The website also
states the contract begins on September 28 and ends March 30, 2026. The
CBP spokesperson did not respond to a request for further details.
SLSCO, the Galveston company, is contracted to build a stretch of border
wall in Maverick County for Abbott as part of the governors problem-
plagued Operation Lone Star. It also won contracts under Trump for border
wall in Texas and other states. The brothers who run the company have
donated generously to Abbott, U.S. Senator John Cornyn, and other GOP
candidates. The company was involved in a 2020 federal lawsuit, ultimately
dismissed, about the illegal use of Mexican security guards in California
and has been accused of bilking the City of New York in a deal related to
COVID vaccinations. The company did not respond to an Observer request for
comment.
Banner ad: When Texas is at its worst, The Texas observer must be at its
best. Become a sustaining member this month to help us raise $25,000 in
critical membership revenue. Join now.
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After news of the October waiver broke, Biden told reporters that he had
no choice in the matter: Congress had appropriated money for a border wall
in the Rio Grande Valley in 2019 and, despite his administrations
requests, had not revoked that funding. Biden had delayed spending this
money inherited from the Trump administration, but the funds now had to be
spent according to Congress mandate before they expiredeven though Biden
believes border fencing is ineffective. DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas
made similar claims and stated that the move did not represent a change in
the administrations overall opposition to a physical border wall.
But border advocates have responded thatwhether or not Biden must spend
the money in question on border fencingnothing legally required DHS to
waive environmental and historic preservation protections in order to
speed wall construction. There is no legal requirement to waive laws that
protect vulnerable border communities and wildlife in the appropriations
language or elsewhere, wrote a large coalition of organizations in an
October 16 letter to the president. This waiver of law has been issued at
the discretion of your administration and your administration has the
power to reverse it.
Without the waiver, DHS would have to comply with more rigorous
environmental and historical preservation requirements and be subject to
lawsuits over this compliancewhich anti-wall advocates say is exactly how
things should go. It really is just a fundamental unfairness that we can
live in the Rio Grande Valley and just have bedrock laws that are
unquestioned throughout the rest of the United States not apply to us,
said Ricky Garza, Border Policy Counsel for the Southern Border
Communities Coalition.
Garza said that complying with environmental laws would cost money,
possibly spending down the money that Biden says must be used for new
wall. Nicol argued the remaining money could also go to undoing damage
done by stretches of wall built by Trump rather than erecting new fencing.
Dinah Bear, an environmental lawyer who served on the Presidents Council
on Environmental Quality from the 1980s through the 2000s, agreed on the
waiver question. There is absolutely no legal reason on the face of the
earth that they had to issue the waivers, she told the Observer. But she
thinks there is a very legitimate argument that Biden is bound to spend
the 2019 appropriations money on new wall mileage because that years bill
specifically mandated construction of pedestrian fencing in the Rio
Grande Valley.
DHS and the White House did not respond to emailed requests for comment
for this story.
The Biden administrations decision to plow wildlife-killing border walls
through some of the best remaining habitat in the Rio Grande Valley is a
national disgrace, Laiken Jordahl, a Southwest Conservation Advocate at
the Arizona-based Center for Biological Diversity who helped set off the
short-lived media frenzy last month with a viral social media post, told
the Observer. We urge the president to use his power to restore legal
protections to the borderlands and stop the bulldozers from descending on
this peaceful, serene corner of south Texas.
https://www.texasobserver.org/biden-quietly-gave-border-wall-contract-to-
company-used-by-trump-abbott/
Security (DHS) awarded a $229 million contract for border wall
construction in Starr County to SLSCO Ltd., a contractor that also built
wall for the Trump administration and is presently doing so for Texas
Governor Greg Abbott. Starr County, a largely rural and flood-prone area
in Texas Rio Grande Valley with a few towns abutting the river, currently
hosts just a few short stretches of border fencing. SLSCO is a Galveston-
based firm run by a family of GOP political donors.
Bidens decision to build roughly 20 miles of border wall in Starr County
made international news early last month when DHS waived a suite of
environmental and historic preservation laws in order to speed
construction. The move suggested a stark departure from Bidens promise,
made during his 2020 campaign, that there would not be another foot of
wall built on his watch. In reality, Biden continued building a shorter
version of Trumps wall in parts of South Texas and has been increasing
the height of fencing in Friendship Park in Southern California. But last
month marked the first time Biden used DHS sweeping waiver authoritya
relic of a Bush-era act of Congressand the Starr County project is the
presidents most significant border wall undertaking to date.
The flurry of press coverage of the October 5 DHS waiver overlooked the
fact that the administration had already issued a construction contract
for the project about a week prior. Some trade publications stated no
contractor had been identified. Under the Trump administration, Customs
and Border Protection (CBP) typically issued press releases when wall
contracts were awarded, but no press release appears to have been issued
in this case. (A press release was issued in late June announcing the 20-
mile project.) The Texas Observer located the contract on the website
usaspending.gov, and a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) spokesperson
confirmed the contract and its purpose.
THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATIONS DECISION TO PLOW WILDLIFE-KILLING BORDER WALLS
THROUGH SOME OF THE BEST REMAINING HABITAT IN THE RIO GRANDE VALLEY IS A
NATIONAL DISGRACE.
Clearly DHS under the Biden administration has no more respect for border
residents than it did under the Trump administration, said Scott Nicol, a
longtime anti-wall activist and researcher and board member of the Valley-
based Friends of the Wildlife Corridor, upon learning of the contract.
Biden should use the remaining funds to mitigate some of the damage
border walls have already done, not waste hundreds of millions of dollars
to inflict more destruction.
On October 17, a CBP official did describe the contract in a declaration
filed in an ongoing lawsuit in which the State of Texas and other parties
are attempting to force Biden to broadly resume constructing Trumps
border wall. This declaration was reported behind a hard paywall in
Law360. The declaration states the contract is for 17 miles of new border
barrier in Starr. According to usaspending.gov, the deal is for $229
million, yielding a per-mile cost of about $13.5 million. The website also
states the contract begins on September 28 and ends March 30, 2026. The
CBP spokesperson did not respond to a request for further details.
SLSCO, the Galveston company, is contracted to build a stretch of border
wall in Maverick County for Abbott as part of the governors problem-
plagued Operation Lone Star. It also won contracts under Trump for border
wall in Texas and other states. The brothers who run the company have
donated generously to Abbott, U.S. Senator John Cornyn, and other GOP
candidates. The company was involved in a 2020 federal lawsuit, ultimately
dismissed, about the illegal use of Mexican security guards in California
and has been accused of bilking the City of New York in a deal related to
COVID vaccinations. The company did not respond to an Observer request for
comment.
Banner ad: When Texas is at its worst, The Texas observer must be at its
best. Become a sustaining member this month to help us raise $25,000 in
critical membership revenue. Join now.
ADVERTISEMENT
After news of the October waiver broke, Biden told reporters that he had
no choice in the matter: Congress had appropriated money for a border wall
in the Rio Grande Valley in 2019 and, despite his administrations
requests, had not revoked that funding. Biden had delayed spending this
money inherited from the Trump administration, but the funds now had to be
spent according to Congress mandate before they expiredeven though Biden
believes border fencing is ineffective. DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas
made similar claims and stated that the move did not represent a change in
the administrations overall opposition to a physical border wall.
But border advocates have responded thatwhether or not Biden must spend
the money in question on border fencingnothing legally required DHS to
waive environmental and historic preservation protections in order to
speed wall construction. There is no legal requirement to waive laws that
protect vulnerable border communities and wildlife in the appropriations
language or elsewhere, wrote a large coalition of organizations in an
October 16 letter to the president. This waiver of law has been issued at
the discretion of your administration and your administration has the
power to reverse it.
Without the waiver, DHS would have to comply with more rigorous
environmental and historical preservation requirements and be subject to
lawsuits over this compliancewhich anti-wall advocates say is exactly how
things should go. It really is just a fundamental unfairness that we can
live in the Rio Grande Valley and just have bedrock laws that are
unquestioned throughout the rest of the United States not apply to us,
said Ricky Garza, Border Policy Counsel for the Southern Border
Communities Coalition.
Garza said that complying with environmental laws would cost money,
possibly spending down the money that Biden says must be used for new
wall. Nicol argued the remaining money could also go to undoing damage
done by stretches of wall built by Trump rather than erecting new fencing.
Dinah Bear, an environmental lawyer who served on the Presidents Council
on Environmental Quality from the 1980s through the 2000s, agreed on the
waiver question. There is absolutely no legal reason on the face of the
earth that they had to issue the waivers, she told the Observer. But she
thinks there is a very legitimate argument that Biden is bound to spend
the 2019 appropriations money on new wall mileage because that years bill
specifically mandated construction of pedestrian fencing in the Rio
Grande Valley.
DHS and the White House did not respond to emailed requests for comment
for this story.
The Biden administrations decision to plow wildlife-killing border walls
through some of the best remaining habitat in the Rio Grande Valley is a
national disgrace, Laiken Jordahl, a Southwest Conservation Advocate at
the Arizona-based Center for Biological Diversity who helped set off the
short-lived media frenzy last month with a viral social media post, told
the Observer. We urge the president to use his power to restore legal
protections to the borderlands and stop the bulldozers from descending on
this peaceful, serene corner of south Texas.
https://www.texasobserver.org/biden-quietly-gave-border-wall-contract-to-
company-used-by-trump-abbott/