Biden says walls "don't work" even though his administration is about to build one

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Good morning,

Happy Friday!

Mosh is hoping to be back next week. Although it depends on whether Olivia’s campaign for Speaker of the House takes off.

A reminder that the speaker doesn’t need to be a sitting member of Congress 😉

Have a great weekend!

Jill and Mosheh

🗞 BIDEN & THE BORDER WALL

Some mixed messages coming from the White House about the building of a border wall in South Texas. On Wednesday, the Biden administration announced it waived 26 federal laws to allow for border wall construction in the Rio Grande Valley. It’s the first time the administration used executive power to build more border barriers. At the same time, Biden told reporters on Thursday that he doesn’t believe border walls work.

WHAT’S THE DEAL?
The money to build the wall was appropriated back in 2019 and earmarked specifically for physical border barriers. President Biden says he tried to reappropriate the money and it wasn’t possible.

FLASHBACK FRIDAY: As a candidate, Biden vowed that there will “not be another foot” of border wall constructed on his watch.

Then when he first took office, on Jan. 20, 2021, the Biden Administration issued a proclamation to end the construction, writing: “building a massive wall that spans the entire southern border is not a serious policy solution.”

FAST FORWARD: There is now a new surge of migrants crossing into the United States from Mexico, hitting record high levels and putting a strain on federal and local resources across the country.

Border Patrol reported nearly 300,000 encounters in the Rio Grande Valley sector between last October and August, according to federal data.
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) sources told Fox News last week there were more than 260,000 encounters in September, which would be the highest monthly total on record.

The Department of Homeland Security waived The Clean Air Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, and Endangered Species Act to make way for construction that will use funds from a congressional appropriation in 2019 for border wall construction. The waivers avoid time-consuming reviews and lawsuits challenging violation of environmental laws.

THE POLITICS OF IT ALL
Biden has faced pushback from Republicans— and Democrats— about his immigration policies, with both sides urging his administration to do more to curb an influx of migrants on the southern border.

Republicans say the historic number of migrants is Biden’s fault for rolling back Trump-era policies and stopping the construction of the border wall. But Democrats are also critical:

The Democratic Mayor of NYC, Eric Adams, has said NYC would be “destroyed” by the costs of housing migrants. He said the federal government hasn’t provided resources to accommodate arrivals, and that the Biden Administration is “wrong on immigration.”
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, an ally of the White House, called the pace of migrant arrivals to his state an "untenable situation.”
- In a letter to President Biden, he wrote: "On top of the 15,000 [migrants] that have arrived in Chicago and Illinois over the last 13 months, we are now seeing busloads [of] more migrants at increasingly higher rates being sent specifically to Chicago each day… Most critically… the federal government's lack of intervention and coordination at the border has created an untenable situation for Illinois."

✔︎ Mo News Reality Check: There is no easy answer to immigration and lawmakers have for years failed to pass comprehensive immigration reform. Given the divisions in Congress, lawmakers are not going to pass any real reform any time soon.

In the meantime, the Biden Administration says it’s granting temporary legal status to hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans who are already in the country so they are eligible to work.

⏳ SPEED READ

🚨NATION

📌 Coordinated ‘swatting’ effort may be behind hundreds of school shooting hoaxes (WASHINGTON POST)

📌 George Santos former campaign treasurer to plead guilty in federal court (CNBC)

📌 Armed man demands to see Wisconsin governor, is arrested, and then returns with a rifle (AP)

📌 Alabama finally has a new congressional map after a lengthy legal fight (NPR)

📌 Fentanyl, illegal migration and guns top agenda as Blinken visits Mexico (NY TIMES)

🌎 AROUND THE WORLD

📌 Russia targets eastern Ukrainian village in year’s deadliest attack (FINANCIAL TIMES)

📌 Himalayan lake flooding in India kills 18, nearly 100 missing (REUTERS)

📌 Mysterious injury of 16-year-old Iranian girl not wearing a headscarf in Tehran’s Metro sparks anger (AP)

📌 Japan releases 2nd round of Fukushima’s radioactive wastewater into the sea (FOX NEWS)

📱BUSINESS, SCIENCE & TECH

📌 Elon Musk’s X gets rid of story headlines and links in users’ feeds (CNBC)

📌 It's not the "glass ceiling" holding women back at work, new analysis finds (CBS)

📌 Scientists discover the highest energy gamma-rays ever from a pulsar (PHYS)

📌 Weight loss drugs may be linked to stomach paralysis, other rare but severe issues, study says (CNBC)

🎬 SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT

📌 Kelce brothers say that the NFL is ‘overdoing’ promotion of Taylor Swift’s attendance at Chiefs games (CNN)

📌 Nobel Prize in literature goes to Jon Fosse for ‘innovative’ works that ‘give voice to the unsayable’ (CNN)

📌 ‘Saturday Night Live’ to return next week with Pete Davidson as host (CNN)

📌 ‘The Drew Barrymore Show’ writers decline to return (HOLLYWOOD REPORTER)

🎉 CHEERS TO THE FREAKIN WEEKEND

WHAT WE’RE WATCHING: Jill: Never Have I Ever~ Netflix
WHAT WE’RE READING: Jill: Group-Chat Culture Is Out of Control~ The Atlantic
WHAT WE’RE EATING: Jill: Olly Olly NYC X Zingerman’s Deli Reuben Pop Up