The Biden Administration announced on Thursday that they waived 26 federal laws in Southern Texas to continue constructing a border wall that will serve to deter illegal immigrants. This waiver is the first instance in which the Biden Administration exerted its executive power in a sweeping move, a tactic that was favored by the Trump Administration.
President Biden argued that he attempted to convince Congress to redirect the money, but failed. “The money was appropriated for the border wall,” he explained. “I can’t stop that.” When asked if he thinks the border wall is going to stop illegal immigration from Mexico, he gave a clear answer: “No.” However, regardless of intention, this plan to continue the wall construction in Texas is a tragedy that serves no purpose but a detrimental one for the Indigenous communities and a hypocritical one in a historical context.
The wall is useless. The immigration crisis in Southern Texas is caused by an unfortunate amalgamation of complex factors such as political instability, frequent violence, and climate change. A physical barrier is ineffective against these intangible problems — it is incapable of addressing the root causes of the immigrant influx. People will find other ways to leave their home country, away from these issues that plague their daily lives to find security.
So, President Biden was correct in saying “no” to whether or not the wall was going to stop illegal immigration. Let’s further examine his answer. In his presidential campaign, Biden vowed that he would not allow “another foot” of the wall to be built and acknowledged the futility of President Trump’s wall. The day he took office, Biden issued a proclamation that ended the national emergency declared in Southern Texas by the Trump Administration, pausing both the construction of border walls and, “to the extent permitted by law,” the border wall funds. The proclamation ordered agencies to “develop a plan for the redirection of funds concerning the southern border wall.” During his term, Biden has taken a more aggressive stance than even Obama to end the confiscation of land near the borders for the purpose of building the wall — which is why this announcement feels like being backstabbed to many people, even though Biden has clarified that he had no choice but to continue the construction.
As of Thursday, President Biden, though unintentionally, broke his promises to the Indigenous groups of Southern Texas, especially because the wall does nothing to remedy the immigration crisis.
Costica Bradatan, a professor in the Honors College at Texas Tech University, wrote about the power of walls back in 2011. “While walls and fences are certainly physical things — imposing ones at that — a good deal of their power comes from elsewhere… Walls, then, are built not for security, but for a sense of security.” The symbolism of the U.S. – Mexico border wall does nothing to promote the “security” of the U.S. towns in Southern Texas. As Bradatan later adds, “Walls protect people not from barbarians, but from anxieties and fears…what is built is not a wall, but a state of mind.”
The wall is threatening the First Amendment rights of the Indigenous population: religious freedom. The application of the First Amendment for Indigenous religions has been inconsistent for a long time in history, at least until the signing of the 1978 American Indian Religious Freedom Act (AIRFA) under President Carter. The AIRFA, one of the 26 laws waived on Thursday, recognized the practice of Indigenous religions, including access to sacred sites. If the construction of the border wall continues, Indigenous burial sites are in danger of being desecrated by the new additions to the wall.
The physical presence of the wall will be detrimental to the Indigenous population around the border, and that in itself should be reason enough to criticize the border wall. However, to make things worse, the construction of the wall incites a hypocritical idea as well.
It has been widely acknowledged in the modern days that most of the land we stand on in the United States of America was stolen from Indigenous populations. Now the government is building a wall that invades the religious rights of the Indigenous people and is also constructing a border wall that fosters a culture that marks people as illegal. A popular slogan that was used against President Trump’s enthusiastic push for the wall was “No One is Illegal on Stolen Land.” This catchphrase highlights the hypocrisy of a nation founded on unsanctioned settlements that were captured through land theft now enforcing apathetic deportation policies against vulnerable groups — we thought we moved on, but the bigoted wall construction resumes.
Biden had no choice. Perhaps we should think about that point a bit more. A lot of the political discourse that can be heard on campus involves black-and-white ideals. Biden had bad intentions, therefore the consequences are just as terrible. Biden had no bad intentions, therefore the horrible effects are nullified. Evil intention and evil impact are often seen as mutually exclusive. It’s time to take a more nuanced approach — in the end, does it matter if he had a choice or not if the impacts of the wall are so severe? Biden had no choice, and the vile repercussions will happen, regardless. The hypocrisy of its symbolism and the blatant dismissal of Indigenous culture are appalling, no matter the intent or whose choice it was to escalate the situation. Instead of addressing complex international issues like the immigration crisis in a simplistic, harmful manner, the U.S. government should strive to undo the wrongs done by its predecessors and acknowledge the root problems that force people to flee from their home countries.
