Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton calls for U.S. to build border wall in Laredo sector

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton urged the U.S. Customs and Border Protection in a letter to move forward with its original plans to build a border wall in Webb and Zapata Counties as originally dictated by Congress in 2020. 

“A border barrier is critical to protecting Texans,” wrote Paxton in the letter. “The crisis on Texas’s southern border remains ongoing—illegal alien encounters at the southwest border are currently up to 1,295,900 for this fiscal year alone. The massive influx of illegal aliens has inflicted and continues to inflict serious costs on the State of Texas as well as Texans.”

Paxton’s request comes as the Biden Administration conducts an “Environmental Assessment” of the wall.

Additionally, the administration announced that it would divert the funds meant for the border wall back to the Pentagon and use that money to address safety and environmental issues instead.

“Until the Biden Administration uses the congressionally-allotted funds to build the border wall in the Laredo sector, our law enforcement community and the people of this great state will see no end to this crisis,” Paxton said.

“The Department of Homeland Security has recognized the value in the wall, yet Biden ignores the facts, leaving Americans defenseless. It’s time to stop stalling and secure our borders. Build the wall.”

The letter highlights a prior DHS assessment that determined "border barriers are highly effective in deterring and preventing illegal immigration and illegal drug trafficking across the southwest border," and added that "the construction of border barriers on the southwest border led to a 90 percent reduction in border apprehensions."

Earlier this month, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas authorized several projects along the southern border wall, including filling gaps and replacing gates. The work will take place in sections in California, Arizona, and Texas, including parts of the San Diego, Yuma, El Centro, El Paso, and Rio Grande Valley sectors.

During the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles, Mayorkas said that the immigration challenges the nation is currently facing at the border are “beyond anything that anyone has seen before,” with record numbers of undocumented migrants attempting to cross the border.

“The increase in southwest border crossings has resulted in a significant increase in organized crime and drug cartels… Texas and its border communities are directly and disproportionately affected by these resulting crimes. The construction of a border barrier is thus crucial to prevent these harms. And time is of the essence,” Paxton continued. 

"Considering DHS’s recognition of the significant benefit of border barriers to prevent the ever- increasing harms that have resulted from an open border, the Laredo Sector border barrier project should begin immediately, and the environmental assessment should be waived," the attorney general concluded.