Washington, D.C. – Congressman Clay Higgins (R-LA), a Senior Member of the Homeland Security Committee, introduced the Finish the Wall Act, which requires the Biden administration to resume construction of the border wall system. This bill has over 30 cosponsors and was included in the Republican Study Committee (RSC) Fiscal Year 2023 budget proposal.
Under President Trump’s administration, 458 miles of border wall system were completed, with hundreds of miles fully funded and not constructed. However, on January 20, 2021, President Biden signed an executive order which immediately halted the construction of the border wall system.
The Finish the Wall Act would:
- Resume border wall system construction within 24 hours of enactment
- Prevent the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary from canceling construction contracts related to the border wall system
- Require the DHS Secretary to spend all funds appropriated or obligated to the border wall system since Fiscal Year 2017
- Direct the DHS Secretary to submit an implementation plan to Congress, including benchmarks for the deployment of physical barriers, technology, roads, and lighting
- Ensure U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) facilities are fully compliant with the DNA Fingerprint Act of 2005
Text of the bill can be found here.
“When I first introduced this legislation in the 115th Congress, President Trump’s border policies had the cartels’ human and drug trafficking operations pushed down to a manageable level. Law enforcement on the border finally had a President in the White House who supported the mission. Since Biden was inaugurated, we’ve absolutely lost operational control of our southern border. We’ve lost our sovereignty, and our law enforcement professionals have been forced to become welcoming processors of human beings crossing in massive waves. In 2 years, we’ve had 4 million illegal crossings seeking asylum and over a million criminal runners. The runners are mostly young men who are very aggressive and they’re carrying backpacks loaded with drugs or herding sex-traffic victims. They’re plugged into fentanyl trafficking or sex slave trafficking or both. The poison they’re carrying into our country is killing Americans in every state. 107K in 2021 and 108K in 2022.”
“Biden and Mayorkas are 100% responsible for the horror they’re forcing upon America. The cartels are incredibly well-funded and they’re heavily armed and well-organized. President Trump had them in check, but Biden and Mayorkas are essentially doing business with the cartels. Biden’s visit to the border did nothing to address this massive humanitarian and drug crisis. It was a staged, scripted show. Theatre for TV. An insult to the truth. America demands and deserves effective border security. Completing the wall system is critical to our nation’s safety, but the wall system is just one aspect of what we need to do to restore our sovereignty at the southern border. Very, very aggressive actions must be taken now because Biden and Mayorkas have danced with the devil down there, and America has suffered generational harm because of their actions and their agenda.”
