Biden Terminates 'Emergency' Order That Trump Used to Build U.S.-Mexico Border Wall

President Joe Biden has terminated on Thursday the controversial "emergency" declaration that former President Donald Trump used to divert funds to build the U.S.-Mexico border wall. Biden had earlier said that his administration would not spend any more taxpayer funds on the southern border wall.

"The declaration of an emergency on our southern border was unwarranted. No more funds will be used to construct a border wall on our border with Mexico," Biden said in a statement to Congress.

After taking office, New York Daily News reported that Biden has swiftly undone most of Trump's immigration and border security policies.

He has also created a task force to reunite immigrant children separated from their parents during Trump's border crackdown. Biden has also promised to change the immigration policies and system in the country.

Biden's Proclamation to End the Emergency Declaration for the Border Wall Construction

Biden has issued a proclamation to rescind the national emergency declaration that the Trump administration issued for the U.S.-Mexico border as part of its effort to fund the border wall construction.

The White House formally notified Congress of the proclamation this week, saying that the president issued the directive in January upon taking office.

Biden said the country has a right and duty to protect its people and its borders against any threat. However, he noted that building a massive wall covering the entire southern border is not a serious policy solution, according to an Independent report.

Biden added that it is a waste of money that diverts attention from genuine threats to homeland security. The said proclamation calls for a pause in the construction and funding of the border wall. It also directs the secretaries of defense and homeland security to assess the legality of the contracting and funding methods.

For his part, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said many migrants believed that the doors are open to the United States after Biden won in the election. Lopez Obrador cautioned that it was not true and urged migrants not to believe traffickers who tell them they can immediately get legal status.

He also mentioned the recent massacre in Mexico, which involved 19 people, to justify his policy of stopping migrants at Mexico's southern border. Of those 19 victims, 14 were Guatemalan migrants.

Lopez Obrador said the massacre is proof that it was too dangerous to allow migrants to travel through the drug-cartel territory in northern Mexico.

"If they enter Mexico and spread out, we cannot keep an eye on them or protect them, and they wind up in the hands of organized crime, they are in danger," Lopez Obrador said in the report.

Trump's Emergency Declaration on the U.S.-Mexico Border Wall

Trump declared the emergency in February 2019 as his last effort to divert billions of dollars in government funding for a border wall without Congress' approval, Time reported.

Around $6 billion was taken from the military funds under the national emergency after Congress refused Trump's demands for wall funding, leading to a 35-day government shutdown, the longest in history.

Some opponents even sued Trump to block him, but the Supreme Court upheld a legal challenge to Trump's act in a 5-4 vote in July 2019. By the end of the Trump administration, more than 450 miles of new border wall construction along the 2,000-mile border have been completed.

Meanwhile, about 3,600 service members deployed along the 2,000-mile-long southwest border will likely remain in place until the mission ends on Sept. 30, according to Pentagon spokesman John Kirby. Many of those troops deployed were members of the National Guard.

The military mission started in late 2018 when Trump ordered the Pentagon to support the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to protect the country against what he called "an invasion" by a caravan of Central American migrants traveling north through Mexico.