![obama 100 day plan obama 100 day plan](http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/POLITICS/05/27/obama.stimulus/art.obama52709.cnn.jpg)
In many instances the federal government did not obtain possession of properties until 2009 or 2010.īefore Barack Obama and Joe Biden moved into the White House not a single mile of border wall had been finished in South Texas’ Lower Rio Grande Valley. Many of those condemnations were initiated under the Bush Administration, but they continued without pause under the Obama-Biden Administration. Hundreds of land condemnations, carried out by Justice Department lawyers, were necessary in order to build them. Most of the South Texas walls would require the acquisition of private property, and the overwhelming majority of landowners in the path of these walls did not want to sell. Let us build bridges of friendship, safety, and prosperity – not walls of hatred and division.” Expressing the wishes of border residents they wrote, “We respectfully ask that you make the cancellation of the border wall on the Southern Border a top priority of your administration. That’s not going to work.”įollowing Barack Obama’s victory he received a letter from Commissioners in Cameron County, an area of South Texas where walls had been planned under the Bush Administration but where, due to the time it took for the federal government to condemn private property, none had yet been built.
![obama 100 day plan obama 100 day plan](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2008/10/19/us/politics/19campaign2.600.jpg)
We can’t do it by building a wall along the border. Campaigning against Hillary Clinton in South Texas ahead of the 2008 Texas primary, candidate Obama said, “We have to work with local communities to deal with the border in intelligent ways. When Donald Trump was inaugurated in January of 2017 a total of 654 miles of border barrier (including both pedestrian fencing and vehicle barrier) were waiting for him.īorder communities were rightly upset by continued wall construction during the Obama presidency. The Obama-Biden Administration would oversee construction of an additional 128 miles of border wall. Of those, 135 miles had been built prior to the passage of the Secure Fence Act. By April of 2008 then-Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff had issued waivers that swept aside dozens of federal laws and “all federal, state, or other laws, regulations and legal requirements of, deriving from, or related to the subject of” the named laws for all of the planned border walls.īy the end of President Bush’s time in office the U.S.-Mexico border was lined with 278 miles of 15-to-18-foot-tall pedestrian fence and 248 miles of vehicle barrier, for a total of 526 miles. The Bush Administration intended to build 700 miles by December of 2008, when his second term would come to an end. In 2006 then-President Bush signed the Secure Fence Act, which called for the erection of hundreds of miles of barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border. Instead of halting construction and removing walls, they built more than 100 miles of new wall along the southwest border. When pressed during an NPR interview he said that “not another foot” would be built while he is in office, which sounds like a solid promise to cancel border wall condemnations and construction contracts on day one.īut Joe Biden has been in the White House before, as Vice President during the Obama administration. President-elect Biden has been far quieter regarding his plans for border walls. The 400 miles of border wall that he has overseen will inflict ongoing damage upon Native American nations and border towns, fragile ecosystems and endangered species, for as long as they stand. Border walls came to symbolize Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, and were prioritized during his administration.