UNIT 1 – Crossing Lines
Records Show Trump’s Border Wall Is Costing Taxpayers Billions More Than Initial Contracts
[…] In May 2019, the Army Corps of Engineers awarded a pair of contracts worth $788 million to replace 83 miles of fence along the southwest border.
President Donald Trump made construction of the border wall a signature issue during his 2016 campaign, claiming that his skills as a builder and businessman would allow his administration to build the wall in a more cost-efficient way than his predecessors. “You know the wall is almost finished,” he told a crowd of supporters in Arizona recently, and they weren’t paying a “damn cent” for the border wall. […]
Perla Trevizo, The Texas Tribune, 27 Oct. 2020
Biden Approves New Section of Border Wall as Mexico Crossings Rise
Building a border wall was a signature policy of Donald Trump as president and fiercely opposed by Democrats. […] In 2020, Mr. Biden promised he would not build another foot of wall if elected.
[…] On Thursday, however, Mr. Biden said he “can’t stop” the construction of the border wall because the funding for it had already been appropriated [by Trump’s administration]. When asked whether he believes the wall could work, he replied simply: “no”.
In a statement to Associated News on Wednesday night, the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) similarly defended the latest move, saying it was using funds already allocated for a border barrier.
Armstrong, Kathryn, BBC News, 5 Oct. 2023
A group known as American Principles in Action is running an ad targeting Hispanic voters in Nevada, trying to weaken their support for President Barack Obama.
“Don’t be fooled by President Obama’s words,” the narrator says. “He’s not committed to immigrants. He only wants our vote. With the election on the line, he offers our undocumented youth a temporary solution that cheats them of legal status.
[…] According to current figures from Immigration and Customs Enforcement – the federal agency responsible for deportations – Obama has removed 1.4 million people during his 42 months in office so far. Technically, that’s fewer than under George W. Bush, whose […] total was 2 million. But Bush’s number covers eight full years, which doesn’t allow an apples-to-apples comparison. If you instead compare the two presidents’ monthly averages, it works out to 32,886 for Obama and 20,964 for Bush, putting Obama clearly in the lead.