CNN’s John Berman called out President Joe Biden Thursday for breaking his campaign promise to not construct a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
The Biden administration cleared the path to construct more border wall on federally protected land in the Rio Grande Valley sector of Texas as the migrant crisis worsened in the 2023 fiscal year. This action contradicts Biden’s campaign promise in 2020 to not build any additional border wall.
“President Biden is building the wall, at least part of it. This is something he said he would not do,” Berman said.
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During his presidential run, Biden repeatedly promised his future administration would not add any additional construction to the unfinished wall built by former President Donald Trump’s administration. In an Aug. 5, 2020, interview, Biden vowed there would “not be another foot of wall constructed” along the southern border. (RELATED: CNN’s Poppy Harlow Presses Sen. Bob Menendez As To Whether Biden Admin ‘Failed’ To Handle Border Crisis)
In January 2019, Biden told a reporter at an airport that a wall “is not the border security we need.”
Berman pointed to Biden signing a proclamation stating that building a wall along the southern border is “not a serious policy solution” shortly after he assumed office.
“We should note today’s action does not do that, it’s a twenty-mile section,” Berman continued. “Nevertheless, it is very different than what President Biden campaigned on.”
Federal authorities have encountered 245,000 illegal migrants in the Rio Grande Valley sector in the 2023 fiscal year, according to a filing published by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The Biden administration has also been trying to fill the gaps in the border wall along the Yuma, Arizona sector, while quietly “disposing” of border wall materials put forth by the Trump administration.
The Biden administration was previously sued by Republican Attorney General Mark Brnovich in April 2021 for halting construction of the border and revoking the Trump administration’s “Remain in Mexico” policy, which required illegal migrants to await their U.S. court appearances in Mexico. Forty Republican senators also accused Biden’s border freeze of violating federal law in a letter sent to the president in March 2021.