The Government Accountability Office has reportedly launched an inquiry into whether Joe Biden broke the law when he halted construction of the border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Biden campaigned on reversing former president Trump’s border security policies, including his pet project, the wall, and he made good on his promise as soon as he entered office.
It turns out, Biden may not have been legally permitted to end the construction because the funding for the project had already been approved.
Charles Young, public affairs officer for the GAO, confirmed the investigation on Tuesday, as more and more border Democrats spoke out against Biden’s disastrous immigration policies.
In an effort to address the mounting criticism, Biden on Wednesday blamed former president Trump for the crisis at the border during a sit down with reporters at the White House.
If reporters had been allowed to ask questions, they might have asked Biden about his questionable decision to halt construction on the border wall.
Congress approved nearly $1.4 billion in border wall funding in December 2020 for fiscal year 2021 as part of former a $900 billion coronavirus stimulus package.
Roy Blunt, chair of the Senate Republican Policy Committee, told Politico: “He knows it’s the Congress’ job to authorize how the money is spent and the president’s job to spend it efficiently.”
Their investigation comes after a group of 40 Republican senators, led by Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, wrote to the GAO saying the order to stop construction had contributed to a ‘humanitarian and national security crisis’ at the border.
The president’s actions ‘are also a blatant violation of federal law and infringe on Congress’ constitutional power of the purse,’ they wrote.
‘We write regarding these actions. We believe they violated the Impoundment Control Act (ICA) as interpreted by your office, and we request your legal opinion on the matter.’
They argue that the ICA requires that Biden transmit a message to Congress ‘that includes the amount of budget authority proposed for deferral or rescission and the reason for the proposal.’
On Tuesday, a group of more than 60 Republican members of the House and four more senators added their names to Moore Capito’s bid to get an answer from the Government Accountability Office on whether Biden’s move to suspend border wall construction was in violation of federal law.
The letter was written by Reps. John Katko, Kay Granger and Jason Smith – the ranking members of the House Homeland Security Committee, Appropriations Committee and Budget Committee respectively. Cosigners include House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Minority Whip Steve Scalise, along with Senators Mike Lee of Utah, Josh Hawley of Missouri, Dan Sullivan of Alaska and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin.
“The Biden administration has to be really careful about doing stuff like this, because otherwise they’re just going to be doing the exact thing the Trump administration did — just at the other end of the policy spectrum,” Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette, a manager at the watchdog group Project on Government Oversight, told Politico.
The Biden regime has come under fire in recent days from Democrat office holders who live near the border, and from reporters fed up with its lack of transparency on border issues.
Although the Biden administration and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas have refused to admit there is a crisis at the border, it is obvious that migrants heard Biden’s campaign messaging loud and clear. The Biden administration cancelled Trump’s successful border security policies, prompting illegal aliens to flood across the border in such massive numbers, the regime has been releasing them into the U.S. without without even issuing a Notice to Appear (NTA), meaning they are being let go without a court date.
On Monday, shocking photos of hundreds of illegal immigrants packed like sardines in a Texas border facility emerged online.
Meanwhile, Democrat office-holders who live near the southern border are starting to speak out.
Texas Democratic Rep. Vicente Gonzalez told CNN that there needs to be a better plan in place.
“My concern in the recent weeks, in my district, [is] migrants who made it across the border, who even passed the line of MPPs — who were 5,000 folks that have been waiting for two years across the border. [They] made it across the Rio Grande Valley, were processed and released,” Gonzalez said.
“I can assure you, it won’t be long before we have tens of thousands of people showing up to our border, and it’ll be catastrophic for our country, for my region, for my district,” Gonzalez continued. “In the middle of a pandemic, in an area where we’ve lost over 3,000 people in my small congressional district … I think we need to have a better plan in place.”
Democratic Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar complained in early March that the Biden administration has not been sharing the real number of unaccompanied children at the U.S.-Mexico border.
“I don’t care what we call it, but I can tell you this — those numbers of people being released, they’re purposefully withholding that information. They’ve been told not to withhold that information. I now know that they’re bringing people from McAllen over to Laredo, processing them in Laredo, and they’re going to release them in my community,” Cuellar added.
Texas Democratic state Sen. Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa told The Hill that he does not think the Biden regime was prepared for the massive influx of illegal aliens crossing the border.
“It’s gotten worse,” Hinojosa said. “I don’t think, quite frankly, the Biden administration was aware of what’s happening on the ground here, which you can understand because they’re just coming in and trying to get people up to speed with what’s happening, but I don’t think they were aware there were that many coming across. The Border Patrol is overwhelmed, they’re throwing their hands up because they don’t know what to do.”
Last month, Del Rio Mayor Bruno Lozano made an urgent plea to Biden to stop releasing illegal immigrants into his small town because they don’t have the resources to help them. Lozano also pointed out that the migrants could potentially spread Covid-19 to residents.
“I am pleading and requesting with you to please put a halt to any measures regarding the release of immigrants awaiting court dates, into the city of Del Rio and surrounding areas,” Lozano told Biden in a video message.
“If you do send these individuals into our community, we will be forced to make a decision to leave them without resources under these dire circumstances,” the mayor said in the video as images of long lines to grocery stores with empty shelves were shown.
“Please make another plan for this federal issue,” he told the president. “If you are going to allow these individuals into our community, I ask that you please provide the supplies and means necessary to accommodate them safely under these extreme circumstances.
“We are completely and utterly spread thin with resources for our community,” he said.
A month later, Lozano called Biden’s lack of an adequate response “a slap in the face.”
“You have a breach on national security levels that have never before been seen in modern history and you’re not even batting an eye about it, you’re not even calling it a crisis, you’re calling it a quote-unquote challenge,” Lozano said.
Even the left-of-center President of Mexico, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, said at a recent press conference that he believes Joe Biden’s immigration policies are the primary cause of the unprecedented surge.
On Monday, after photos showing the overcrowded conditions at the holding facility in Donna, Texas, were released, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said journalists will eventually be able to tour the detention centers. But she gave no timeline for the media trips, and continued to insist that there is “no crisis.”
Biden on Wednesday blamed the “non-crisis” at the border on his predecessor, claiming Trump eliminated the $700 million in financial aide the Obama regime gave to countries in the Northern triangle, which was purportedly designed to help mitigate the “root causes” of migration to the U.S.
Biden and Kamala Harris spoke for 7 1/2 minutes, and the meeting ended when Biden seemed confused about what to say or do next.
“Ron, who am I turning this over to?” he weakly asked his Chief of Staff Ron Klain. “Thank you very much Mr. President, I think it’s time for our friends in the press to leave though,” Klain replied.
The reporters were shooed out of the room without being able to ask any questions.