President-elect Joe Biden has pledged to end construction on President Trump's U.S.-Mexico border wall as soon as he's sworn into office. But it may not be as easy as he thinks – and might be more costly.
One of the more divisive policies since the start of his term, with broken promises that Mexico would pay for it, Trump's wall has been paid for by Americans, in a multibillon-dollar bill. Many are hoping the end of Trump's term will mean an end to the wall.
"This monument to racism, if you will, was built at a huge expense, wasting billions of taxpayer dollars, and I think it's just irresponsible not to do something to address that, because future harms are still in place," Vicki Gaubeca, the director of the Southern Border Communities Coalition, a collective of 60 migrant and community groups along the U.S.-Mexico border told AZ Central.
According to AZ Central, in August, Biden told a panel of Black and Latino reporters "there will not be another foot of wall constructed on my administration."
But despite the politics, policy analyst Sarah Pierce with the Migration Policy Institute told Fox5 in San Diego, that rolling back Trump administration's immigration policies and ending construction on the infamous wall could be extraordinarily difficult and even unlikely.
"The Trump administration has signed a lot of contracts with companies to build sections of the border wall. So they are going to have to terminate those contracts, which can come with significant fees," Pierce said. "So even not building any more walls under a Biden administration might have some significant costs."
Additionally, many of the Trump administration's immigration policies are being challenged in court making them even more of a longshot to end.
"The Biden administration just isn't going to be able to pour in the same number of resources that the Trump administration did to immigration," Pierce explains.
"They just have so much else going on with the pandemic and health care, climate change, racial injustice."
Since Trump took office, the administration has built 400 miles of wall along the southwestern U.S. border, with an expected additional 50 miles before the end of the year.
