In 2023, Texas will be completing construction on the U.S.-Mexico border wall initiated by former President Donald Trump.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) took to Twitter on Wednesday (December 14) to announce that the state would be commencing the construction of the wall, adding that it will likely take up most of 2023.
Abbott also revealed that the project was months in the making and only concluded after negotiations with private property owners that only land along the border.
Part of the 2023 construction project will also include a new build of a slatted wall, though its position along the border is unspecified.
Throughout Trump’s Presidency, construction crews worked to build a border wall that would need to extend 1,900 miles to protect the entire U.S.-Mexico Border.
That changed in President Joe Biden’s Presidency. Rather than continue the work, most of it became dormant, with large swathes of border wall either falling into disrepair or never being built across the four border states.
Abbott’s renewed urgency to build the wall comes as the border state deals with a record number of crossings that are only expected to increase when Title 42 ends.
Earlier on Wednesday, Abbott had tweeted that the border crossings had become “unsustainable.”
He was relaying what El Paso officials had told him, highlighting that these comments days before Title 42 would end, and blamed Biden’s “2 years of inaction” for the crisis.
Abbott asserted the Lone Star state “will do whatever it takes” while Biden “drags his feet.”
