The Biden administration has approved plans to complete a section of the southern border wall separating California from Mexico, a project that started under former President Donald Trump.
The Department of Homeland Security announced in May that it would replace a “deteriorated barrier” located near the cross-border Friendship Park in Imperial Beach.
DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas approved the designs, which were first authorized by the Trump administration in 2018.
In the announcement, DHS said the barrier “has not been treated to withstand corrosion from nearby ocean waters and currently poses safety risks to Border Patrol agents, community members, and migrants”.
Funding for the project will come from funds allotted to pay for Trump’s border wall.
Immigration advocates were told last month that construction would begin on “two 30-foot barriers that would extend the existing wall all the way to the Pacific Ocean,” reported the New York Post.
“Border Patrol says they are just ‘replacing walls’ at Friendship Park, but the proposed construction amounts to a permanent closure of the U.S. side of this historic location,” said John Fanestil, head of the San Diego-based Friends of Friendship Park coalition.
“Joe Biden should not be putting the finishing touches on Donald Trump’s border wall at Friendship Park,” he added.
The park is a famous spot where separated families could meet and touch without a wall between them.
There are reportedly no plans for an entrance for pedestrians on the secondary wall, meaning the U.S. side will no longer be accessible.
While Biden signed an executive order stopping border wall construction on his first day in office, his administration has since approved several border projects.