Beto O’Rourke slams Biden border wall order as ‘impotent political posturing’

Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas) slammed the Biden administration’s new border wall order as “impotent political posturing,” claiming the move will make it more difficult for voters to differentiate between the border and immigration policies of President Biden and former President Trump.

In a list of points posted to X, formerly known as Twitter, O’Rourke outlined the reasons why he didn’t support the order.

“1. Walls don’t work,” wrote O’Rourke, who ran an unsuccessful 2022 gubernatorial campaign against Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. “2. President Biden promised he wouldn’t build them 3. Now ever harder for voters to distinguish between him & Trump on border/immigration.”

In his last point, he called it a “wasted opportunity to use executive power to actually fix our asylum system instead of impotent political posturing.”

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced Wednesday it will waive 26 federal laws to allow border wall construction in Starr County, Texas, which is experiencing “high illegal entry.” The move is the administration’s first use of an executive power often used by Trump to fund projects along the southern border. 

Under the Trump administration, billions in defense and military construction funds were diverted toward building a wall at the southern border, a central focus of the former president’s 2016 campaign. He was then forced to use emergency powers instead, after Congress refused to fully fund the project.

Shortly into Biden’s administration in 2021, the president canceled the state of emergency Trump declared on the southern border and later slashed projects to build the wall. The funds were redirected back to their original purpose or toward repairing environmental damage from the wall’s construction. 

O’Rourke, who was raised in the Texas border city of El Paso and is an advocate of a safe, legal immigration system, has pushed back against the walls and fencing at the southern border over the years.

In July, he requested Biden immediately remove Abbott’s razor wire and buoy obstructions in the Rio Grande. A federal judge in Texas later ordered the governor to remove the floating barriers.

While crediting some of Biden’s efforts to end Trump’s immigration policies, O’Rourke has also not been afraid to call out the White House.

In a New York Times op-ed published in July, O’Rourke said the strategy of “prevention through deterrence” behind the Biden administration’s asylum restrictions “risks worsening the humanitarian crisis at the border.”

“But [Biden] has also imposed new asylum restrictions that cut off access to protection for far too many, while leaving thousands more to wait for weeks or months in squalid tent camps in Mexican border towns, where they suffer alarming rates of kidnapping, sexual assault or worse,” O’Rourke wrote in July.

Established in May, the new rule closely resembled a Trump-era policy requiring migrants to first seek and be denied asylum in another country before attempting to do so in the U.S. This rule was rolled out ahead of the expiration of Title 42, a pandemic-era ruling that permitted the rapid expulsion of migrants without allowing them to seek asylum.

The Biden administration has maintained a somewhat cautious approach to immigration and border security, fueling criticism from both sides of the aisle at times. 

Efforts from the White House have ramped up in recent weeks. Last month, the Biden administration made a major strategic shift at the border and extended temporary protection status for nearly half a million Venezuelan nationals currently residing in the United States.

The White House also recently sent an additional 800 troops to help with the migration influx at the southern border. The Department of Defense has already deployed around 2,500 state National Guard personnel, in addition to around 24,000 Customers and Border Protection agents and officers and 2,600 nonuniformed officers, the White House said last month.