Letter to William Barr, Attorney General, Mark Esper, Sec. of the Department of Defense, and Chad Wolf, Acting Sec. of Homeland Security - Reps. Grijalva, Vela, Thompson, and Kirkpatrick Express COVID-19 Concerns, Demand a Halt to Border Wall Construction in Letter to DOJ, DOD, and DHS

Letter

Dear Attorney General Barr, Secretary Esper, and Acting Secretary Wolf:

In repeated letters over several weeks now, members of Congress have raised to you the grave
risks that continued border wall construction efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic poses for
border residents, Native American burial grounds and sacred sites, federal employees, and
contracted workers, as well as broader efforts to halt the spread of the coronavirus. We urge you
to stop wasting critical federal resources and putting the lives of the millions who call the border
region home at grave risk during this unprecedented health crisis and immediately cease all
construction efforts.

At a time when we are all taking extraordinary steps to limit the death toll and economic
devastation wrought by this unprecedented pandemic, it is deeply concerning to learn that
government officials, contractors and construction workers in border communities will defy
public health orders and continue border wall construction unabated, perhaps even accelerating
construction in our border communities.1 Workers are congregating in rural, remote border towns such as Ajo and Douglas, Arizona, and Columbus, New Mexico, endangering workers and
residents, threatening to overwhelm extremely limited medical facilities. In Ajo, Arizona, there is
one market, no drugstore, and no hospital. For the safety of these workers and our communities,
border wall construction should immediately stop.

This administration is also denying border community residents of their most essential public
health protections. As laid out in the Real ID Act of 2005, the Secretary of Homeland Security
has the authority to waive "all laws and legal requirements" when it comes to building the wall
or roads along the U.S.-Mexico border. This includes waiving laws that protect our basic public
health and safety rights, such as the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Solid Waste
Disposal Act. On March 16th, after the virus was already spreading in the U.S., Acting Secretary
Wolf used the waiver authority six more times, bringing the Trump administration's total count
to a staggering 23 times. Before this administration, the waiver authority had only been used 5
times in its history. Using this waiver authority is highly controversial and dangerous at any
time, but using it now in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic is reckless, irresponsible, and
unacceptable.

In addition to the serious dangers of continued construction, accelerating eminent domain
proceedings in the federal courts of Texas, where most land in the path of the border wall is
private, threatens a public health disaster. Despite living under shelter-in-place orders, hundreds
of primarily low-income and Mexican-American families in Laredo and the Rio Grande Valley
regions now face the prospect of fighting for their homes and lands while the courts remain open
and the government continues to sue them, all but ignoring the pandemic. To put vulnerable
families already suffering at disproportionate rates at this time is simply unconscionable. Your
agencies must immediately cease all border wall eminent domain litigation and physical
surveying of land during the pandemic.

As the virus continues to spread and our healthcare system grows even more strained, all federal
resources being spent on the wall are desperately needed to fight the pandemic. Of the billions
this Administration diverted from the Department of Defense, hundreds of millions were meant
for emergency and disaster responses for National Guard units across the country, including an"ambulatory care center" in North Carolina.3 Additionally, we must address the health disparities tribal members are experiencing during this world pandemic. Especially when only three percent of tribes in this country have access to coronavirus testing kits. In a time when our communities face the prospect of rationing ventilators and other life-saving care, all of our government's resources should be spent on building hospitals and medical equipment, and ensuring that the public is safe and healthcare workers have all of the resources they need to face this unprecedented crisis. It is deeply upsetting that while we lead the world in the number of COVID-19 cases, we've yet to concentrate all of our powers on containing it. At a minimum, the
government should not additionally endanger border residents, and the communities of
construction workers, during this crucial period.

There is no time to spare. Border wall construction should have been halted weeks ago. We
continue to urge that the Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security and the
Department of Defense, including the Army Corps of Engineers, immediately halt all wall
projects. The Defense, Justice and Homeland Security departments have the power to redirect
their resources during this most critical time where they are needed most: ending this pandemic.
On behalf of millions of border residents, we urge you to immediately halt the construction of
the border wall in favor of containment of COVID-19.

Sincerely,