The Biden administration will soon begin construction on new areas of the southern border wall following a recent surge in migrant crossings. The decision comes as Democratic mayors and governors who govern areas far closer to Canada than Mexico are sending distress signals about the crisis of migrants overflowing homeless shelters and hotels. 

The homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, made the decision to waive more than two dozen federal laws in order to construct physical barriers at the border, according to a notice posted to the Federal Register on Thursday. 

“The Secretary of Homeland Security has determined, pursuant to law, that it is necessary to waive certain laws, regulations, and other legal requirements in order to ensure the expeditious construction of barriers and roads in the vicinity of the international land border in Starr County, Texas,” the order states. 

Citing “high illegal entry” levels at the southern border, the order states that the Department of Homeland Security will soon “install additional physical barriers and roads (including the removal of obstacles to detection of illegal entrants) in the vicinity of the United States border to deter illegal crossings.” 

President Biden announced the construction of a new border wall in June, but the waiving of 26 federal laws — including the Clean Air Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act — represents a reversal by Mr. Biden, who said during the 2020 campaign that he would not build “another foot of wall” on the border. 

According to the most recent data from Customs and Border Patrol, there were more than 230,000 encounters with migrants illegally crossing the southern border in August 2023 alone. Between January and August, nearly 1.5 million border crossings have been reported by CBP. 

Funding for the construction of these barriers will come from a 2019 spending bill signed by President Trump, which stipulated that the money must be spent by the end of 2023 on border barriers. Speaking in the Oval Office on Thursday, Mr. Biden said he “tried to get” Congress “to re-appropriate” the wall funding. 

“They didn’t, they wouldn’t,” the president said. “In the meantime, there’s nothing under the law other than they have to use the money” for border wall construction. “I can’t stop that,” he said.

In August, the administration attempted to thwart efforts to build more sections of a border wall by selling off materials that were meant to be used for the wall’s construction. According to the selling platform GovPlanet — which the government uses to sell off excess materials — the Biden administration sold 162 28-foot-tall “square structural tubes” that were supposed to be used for wall construction. The winning bid was just $29,100. In total, the administration has attempted to sell off $300 million worth of construction equipment but has only netted $2 million as of August 19 — just pennies on the dollar. 

On September 12, the House Oversight Committee launched an investigation into the Biden administration “selling border wall materials,” according to a press release from the committee. “The Biden Administration’s decision to sell already purchased border materials is a waste and abuse of taxpayer dollars,” the chairman of the committee, Congressman James Comer, said in a statement. 

The mayors of America’s largest and third-largest cities are now making their way south following the unprecedented migrant surge, resulting in major strain on those cities. Mayor Adams landed in Mexico on Wednesday to begin a four-day trip to Latin America, where he plans to meet with officials about stemming the tide of tens of thousands of migrants making their way to his city. 

In a video posted to X following his arrival at Mexico City’s airport, Mr. Adams said his flight “was just the beginning” of his mission to “be on the ground and understand the whole flow of migrants and asylum seekers.” The mayor says he will visit Mexico, Ecuador, and Colombia as part of his tour. 

The crisis has placed significant financial burdens on New York City, which now is home to more than 100,000 migrants. At a press conference on August 9, Mr. Adams said the total cost of the crisis — without state or federal aid — would be $12 billion by mid-2025. 

Before Mr. Adams left for his four-day trip, the mayor told reporters at a press conference that the onus of solving the problem lies with the president and Congress. “No cities should have to carry the burden of a nation … of the national government,” he said, referring to the border crisis. 

The mayor of Chicago, Bradon Johnson, whose city has been inundated with 17,000 migrants who now occupy local schools and shelters, will also travel south to learn about how he can better stem the flow of asylum seekers into the Windy City.

Chicago residents, many of them Black, have been speaking out at public meetings in recent months after the migrants have been draining city resources. “We need to go assess the situation — just like our team has gone to D.C. We need better coordination, quite frankly,” the mayor told reporters Wednesday. 

Democratic governors are also sounding the alarm about the migrant crisis. Governor Pritzker sent a letter to Mr. Biden on Monday, saying the humanitarian crisis “is overwhelming our ability to provide aid to the refugee population.” The governor added that Illinois “stands mostly unsupported against this enormous strain on our state resources. Mr. President, I urge you, Secretary Mayorkas, and the rest of your administration to take swift action and intervene on our behalf.”