Millions of illegal migrants are crossing into the US each year under the Biden administration’s open border policies, while cities and states struggle to find ways to shelter, feed, and provide health care and transportation to these undocumented individuals and families. Texas and the federal government are back and forth in court as the Lone Star State seeks to find ways to stem the flood. With all of this going on, critics of the president’s immigration policies are livid that he refuses to do anything about the illegal crossings yet is now working on making the border green.
Making the Border Green
The federal ports of entry at the border may be overwhelmed with illegal migrants, but it seems there’s more important work to be done than securing our boundaries. The General Services Administration (GSA) will be directing funds from the Inflation Reduction Act for a climate initiative at, you guessed it, the border. Never mind using the money allocated during the Trump administration to build the wall – which has mostly gone untouched during Biden’s reign as part of his promise not to build another foot of the structure – it’s time to make the ports of entry greener in alignment with the president’s climate control efforts.
The plan is to upgrade 38 ports of entry using funding from the Democrat’s 2022 budget-climate bill as well as a 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law, The Washington Times explained. Robin Carnahan, GSA administrator, said: “By incorporating clean construction materials and clean energy technologies into these projects, we’re not only supporting bringing these border stations into the 21st century, we’re also supporting the clean energy industries that will lead our economy in the future.” She added that the upgrades would “help strengthen security while creating good-paying jobs, reducing harmful emissions and boosting domestic manufacturing.”
According to the plans, 23 crossings will be fully electric. The Bridge of the Americas port in El Paso, Texas, will have instant electric water heaters, EV charging stations, and onsite water collection for reuse at a cost of $200 million. In Arizona, the San Luis crossing will become the first net-zero emissions port of entry, The Times reported, complete with solar panels and batteries to keep the facility going around the clock. The price tag for this project is $100 million. Arizona’s Douglas Commercial port’s project has a budget of $100 million to make it all electric. Another 13 ports will receive low-carbon paving.
Critics Speak Out
James Massa, NumbersUSA CEO, told Fox News Digital: “The Biden Administration has made it abundantly clear that it will take no effective action to stop the flow of illegal immigration into the United States, only attempt to process faster the intake of inadmissible aliens.”
House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Bruce Westerman (R-AR) accuses the president of ignoring a problem his administration created:
“As usual, the Biden administration is refusing to address a problem of their own making. Instead, they’re touting a billion-dollar investment in green technology at the border while Biden’s border crisis continues to wreak havoc on local communities and federal lands. Talk about fiddling while Rome burns.”
As Massa pointed out to Fox News, ironically, as the government tries to sell America on going green, it’s actually allowing more harm to our environment. “The long-term effects of the administration’s clear aim of adding as many people to the U.S. population by circumventing immigration restrictions put in place by Congress means that our nation’s carbon footprint will increase markedly, which is at odds with President Biden’s stated goal.” He added that the migrant crisis strains the:
“… limited local resources such as water, destroys sensitive environmental sanctuaries for birds and other species, reduces farmland, and creates unsustainable dynamics that weakens the conservation of the nation’s natural resources. “In addition to endangering those millions of people by encouraging them to travel at the hands of cartels, these journeys across Central America to the U.S. southern border are devastating to croplands and wildlife habitat along the way.”
Westerman complained that “spending a billion dollars to build a so-called ‘environmentally friendly’ port of entry feels like a slap in the face to Americans watching our open border policies trash our beautiful public lands day in and day out.”
December of last year saw more than 156,000 migrants encountered at the border, and that doesn’t include the gotaways, which was the highest number recorded in a single month. Fiscal 2024 first quarter saw 785,000 encounters, again the highest ever recorded.
Meanwhile, earlier this month, a judge ruled that the Biden administration was breaking the law when it tried to spend the funds allocated to building a border wall on other projects, including environmental upgrades. Judge Drew B. Tipton said it was up to Congress to decide how the money was spent and for fiscal years 2020 and 2021, and it had assigned nearly $1.4 billion each year for building the wall during the Trump administration. “The central question in this case, then, is this: Has the Government obligated FY 2020 and FY 2021 funds for the ‘construction of [a] barrier system’? The answer is largely no,” the judge said.
While our borders are swamped daily with illegals trying to cross into the country, Biden and his Democrat colleagues ignore building up our security and instead focus on turning the ports of entry green.
