DHS to "Waive Laws" for Border Wall at San Diego

By Jeralyn, Section Trump Administration
Posted on Tue Aug 01, 2017 at 04:49:22 PM EST
Tags: (all tags)

Share This: Digg!

The Department of Homeland Security issued a press release today stating it is "waiving" the law to start building sections of Donald Trump's "border wall" in San Diego.

The Department of Homeland Security has issued a waiver to waive certain laws, regulations and other legal requirements to ensure the expeditious construction of barriers and roads in the vicinity of the international border near San Diego. The waiver will be published in the Federal Register in the coming days.

... The [San Diego]sector remains an area of high illegal entry for which there is an immediate need to improve current infrastructure and construct additional border barriers and roads. To begin to meet the need for additional border infrastructure in this area, DHS will implement various border infrastructure projects. These projects will focus on an approximately 15-mile segment of the border within the San Diego Sector that starts at the Pacific Ocean and extends eastward, to approximately one mile east of what is known as Border Monument 251.

[More...]

Section 102(a) of IIRIRA provides that the Secretary of Homeland Security shall take such actions as may be necessary to install additional physical barriers and roads in the vicinity of the United States border to deter illegal crossings in areas of high illegal entry into the United States. In section 102(b) of IIRIRA, Congress has called for the installation of additional fencing, barriers, roads, lighting, cameras, and sensors on the southwest border. Finally, in section 102© of IIRIRA, Congress granted to the Secretary of Homeland Security the authority to waive all legal requirements that the Secretary, in his sole discretion, determines necessary to ensure the expeditious construction of the barriers and roads authorized by section 102 of IIRIRA.

The Department is implementing President Trump’s Executive Order 13767, Border Security and Immigration Enforcement Improvements, and continues to take steps to immediately plan, design and construct a physical wall along the southern border, using appropriate materials and technology to most effectively achieve complete operational control of the southern border.

The press release concludes with the promise to keep it green.

While the waiver eliminates DHS’s obligation to comply with various laws with respect to covered projects, the Department remains committed to environmental stewardship with respect to these projects. DHS has been coordinating and consulting -- and intends to continue doing so -- with other federal and state resource agencies to ensure impacts to the environment, wildlife, and cultural and historic artifacts are analyzed and minimized, to the extent possible.

Some bidders have delayed the process of awarding contracts and developing a prototype by claiming they were unfairly excluded -- it is likely to take months to resolve these issues.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the King's horses, And all the King's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again!

< Donald Trump Condones Police Misconduct | Donald Trump's Russia Signing Statement >

Legal

Nothing on this site should be construed as legal advice. TalkLeft does not give legal advice.

TalkLeft is not responsible for and often disagrees with material posted in the comments section. Read at your own risk.

DHS to "Waive Laws" for Border Wall at San Diego | 5 comments (5 topical)

Readers Must Login or Create an Account to Comment

"to the extent possible." (5.00 / 1) (#1)
by CaptHowdy on Tue Aug 01, 2017 at 05:10:18 PM EST

oh boy

Have they met San Diego? (5.00 / 1) (#2)
by Militarytracy on Tue Aug 01, 2017 at 06:11:13 PM EST

: This isn't going to sit well with a lot of people. (none / 0) (#3)
by Donald from Hawaii on Tue Aug 01, 2017 at 07:30:08 PM EST

At nearly 5.4 million residents, the San Diego-Tijuana metropolitan area is the 11th largest in North America. (Tijuana is actually the larger of the two cities, population-wise.) San Diego and Tijuana are something of kindred municipal spirits, and several years ago even submitted a bid to co-host the 2024 Summer Olympics. (Which of course was shot down after objections from the U.S. Department of Homeland Paranoi-er, I mean, Homeland Security.)
Nearly sixty million people traverse the border between these two cities annually at San Ysidro, making that port of entry the largest and busiest international borderland crossing in the world. We used to go to Ensenada all the time when I was younger, and I've crossed the border at San Ysidro so many times that I couldn't count if I tried.
Tijuana and nearby Rosarito are also home to a large and rapidly growing expatriate population of American citizens, currently estimated to be over 150,000, who've moved there to avoid the higher cost of living in Southern California.
And the increasing numbers of U.S. travelers who use Tijuana International Airport, which literally sits alongside the frontier fence east of San Ysidro at Otay Mesa, are such that the facility recently opened a co-terminal on the U.S. side of the border for their convenience.
The sheer amount of ignorance and stupidity that's currently on display here by those federal officials who are pushing this lame-brained policy is simply staggering in its scope.
Aloha.

SAN Diego Co. already has (5.00 / 1) (#4)
by oculus on Tue Aug 01, 2017 at 08:42:54 PM EST

border walls. In addition, #of undocumented border-crossers has declined but not b/c Trump was elected. Started declining b/4 that.

i read in my local news paper (none / 0) (#5)
by linea on Tue Aug 01, 2017 at 10:43:44 PM EST

that there very few areas in the usa with any increase in 'unauthorized foreign residents' in the last ten years. seattle is one of them and the increase is due to (according to what i read):

h1b-tech-visa workers staying past their visa expiration or getting dismissed from their employment and remaining in the country.
family members (typically parents and close relatives) of american LPRs and american citizens originally from china, japan, and korea arriving here on three-month tourist visas and remaining.