NBC - Biden administration to fill border wall gaps near Yuma, Arizona

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PHOENIX — The Biden administration on Thursday authorized completion of the Trump-funded U.S.-Mexico border wall in an open area of southern Arizona near Yuma, where four wide gaps make it among the busiest corridors for illegal crossings.

The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that the work to complete the project near the Morelos Dam will better protect migrants who can get hurt slipping down a slope or drown walking through a low section of the Colorado River.

The area is the third busiest crossing for migrants who can easily walk across the river to surrender to border officials.

Completion of the wall was at the top of former President Donald Trump’s agenda, and border security remains a potent issue for candidates of both parties going into this year’s primary elections. President Joe Biden halted new wall construction after he took office, but he has since made closing the gaps just south of Yuma a priority.

Democratic U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, who is seeking his party nomination’s next week to defend the seat in November, has pressed the Biden administration to close the gaps, calling them a challenge for officials trying to secure the border.

But Arizona environmentalist Myles Traphagen, who has been mapping ecological damage left by border wall construction under former President Donald Trump, said that closing the gaps won’t be much of a deterrent.

Traphagen said the Yuma area has “become the new Ellis Island for Arizona, with people arriving there from countries as disparate as Ethiopia, Cuba, Russia, Ukraine, India, Colombia and Nicaragua.

“People have traveled half way around the globe on planes, trains and automobiles,” he said, “so to expect that closing four small gaps is going to make them turn around and book a return flight on Air Ethiopia is sheer fallacy.”

The statement announcing Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas had approved the work to be done by Customs and Border Protection emphasized the area’s “safety and life hazard risks for migrants attempting to cross into the United States.”

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