Biden faces major court defeat after trying to sell border wall materials before Trump takes over
President Biden has been forced to stop auctioning materials used for the border wall after the Texas attorney general stepped in to block the sale.
The unused material was put up for grabs by Congress, which established a plan for how the excess product would be disposed of after wall construction ends in 2021.
Attorney General Ken Paxton said Friday that he has stopped the administration from eliminating any more before President-elect Trump takes office in January.
The Biden administration agreed to the court order, according to Fox Newsallowing President Trump to use the materials.
Last week, Trump asked a red state court to intervene in the sales, accusing Biden of selling the materials after Congress was required to do so.
Paxton’s office said the incumbent administration could be prosecuted for contempt of court if it defies the order.
The southern state has long said it will continue to help Trump rebuild the wall on the southern border if he comes to power.
The unused material was put up for grabs by Congress, which established a plan on how to dispose of the excess product after wall construction ends in 2021.
The Biden administration agreed to the court order, allowing President Trump to use the materials, according to Fox News
Speaking at a press conference at Mar-a-Lago earlier this month, Trump himself had threatened legal action against the sale of the unused portions.
He told reporters: ‘We’re going to spend hundreds of millions of dollars more building the same wall we already have. It’s almost a criminal act.’
He has pledged to crack down on immigration and is proposing a complete overhaul of current laws once he takes power on January 20.
Paxton said, “We have successfully prevented the Biden administration from discarding any more border wall materials before President Trump takes office.
“This follows our major victory in forcing Biden to build the wall, and we will hold his administration accountable for illegally undermining our nation’s border security until their very last day in power, especially when their actions are clearly motivated by the desire to thwart the elected president. Trump’s immigration agenda.’
A website last year called GovPlanetwhich offers online auctions for military surplus, listed hundreds of unused sections of the southern barrier.
Between April and August 2023, they sold 81 steel square structural pipes, which would have been used in the wall panels, and sold them for a profit of $2 million.
Officials also managed to sell more than 700 28-foot hollow beams in five separate lots for $212 each.
Speaking at a press conference at Mar-a-Lago earlier this month, Trump himself had threatened legal action against the sale of the unused portions
Last year, a website called GovPlanet, which offers online auctions for military surplus, listed hundreds of unused sections of the southern barrier.
Joe Biden walks with U.S. Border Patrol agents along a stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border in El Paso, Texas, in January 2023
Trump has brought in former ICE director Tom Homan will serve as “border czar” for his administration and oversee the largest deportation of immigrants in American history.
Trump said Homan would oversee the country’s borders in the next administration.
Ahead of his nomination, Homan said Trump will use the US military to round up and deport “the worst of the worst” illegal migrants in an unprecedented crackdown.
Homan said all of the estimated 20 million people living illegally in the US would be targeted by the campaign. “The bottom line is: if you come to the country illegally, you’re not off the table.”
Homan, who headed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during Trump’s first stint in the White House, said he would revive the president-elect’s “remain in Mexico” program, in which Mexicans take their asylum claims to their side would have processed. the border.
He also promised to close the southern border and build a wall — another of Trump’s flagship promises.
But the former immigration chief rejected any suggestion that concentration camps could be used to hold migrants locked up in the deportation programme.
Instead, he said he would explore possible arrangements for processing asylum seekers in third countries – echoing the Rwanda plan previously touted under Britain before being dumped by Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor government.