Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz has spoken out against President Biden’s decision to move forward with border wall construction in his state. He claimed this rhetoric was not in line with the administration’s actions.
Cruz said he doesn’t believe for a minute that Joe Biden wants to repair the dire situation. The Texas Senator said all this is just lip service to make it seem like he cares.
To speed up the building of the border wall along a 20-mile stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas, the Biden administration said on Thursday that it will waive 26 federal rules.
Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement that building physical barriers and roads near the United States border is urgently needed to prevent illegal entries into the United States in the project areas.
Before now, the administration had avoided building a new wall, and Biden had assured during the 2020 election that no wall would be built. Biden later explained that the Trump administration’s first legal justification for using wall funding had to be scrapped.
Cruz questioned the Biden administration’s immigration policies during an interview with Fox News on Thursday, implying that President Joe Biden wants more undocumented immigrants to enter the nation.
The Republican Party, and Cruz in particular since he is up for reelection in 2023, will be focusing heavily on border policy in the approaching 2023 and 2024 elections. The most prominent candidate is Texas Democrat and incumbent Rep. Colin Allred, who has already declared his candidacy.
Democrats have voiced their disapproval of the shift. Former Texas representative Beto O’Rourke said it was empty political posturing.
He said the move was a missed chance to use executive power to fix the asylum system rather than just making a symbolic gesture. Additionally, he pointed out that this makes it harder for people to distinguish between Biden’s border policies and his likely opponent in the 2024 race, former President Trump.
