Washington: US President Joe Biden’s administration is to build a section of border wall in southern Texas in an effort to stop rising levels of immigration.
Around 20 miles (32km) will be build in Starr County along its border with Mexico, where officials report high numbers of crossings.
Mr Biden in 2020 promised there would be “not be another foot of wall constructed” if he was elected.
More than 245,000 crossings have been made this year, government data shows.
“There is presently an acute and immediate need to construct physical barriers and roads in the vicinity of the border of the United States in order to prevent unlawful entries,” Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said in an announcement.
Dozens of federal laws have been waived in order to approve construction of the wall, including the Clean Air Act and Safe Drinking Water Act.
The move has angered environmentalists, who say the structures will cut through the habitats of endangered plants and animals.
“It’s disheartening to see President Biden stoop to this level, casting aside our nation’s bedrock environmental laws to build ineffective wildlife-killing border walls,” said Laiken Jordahl, a conservation advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity.
Approximately 50,000 migrants from crisis-stricken Venezuela crossed the U.S.-Mexico border unlawfully last month, a record and once-unthinkable number, according to preliminary Department of Homeland Security statistics obtained by CBS News.
The all-time monthly record in border crossings by Venezuelans partially fueled a yearly high in unauthorized arrivals along the southern border in September, making up roughly a quarter of more than 200,000 apprehensions reported by Border Patrol last month. On some days, as many as 3,000 migrants from Venezuela crossed into the U.S. illegally in 24 hours, the internal DHS figures show.
