WASHINGTON - The Department of Homeland Security said on Tuesday it would waive environmental and related laws in order to expedite construction of security-related barriers and roads along the nation’s border with Mexico near San Diego.
The projects would focus on a roughly 15-mile segment of the frontier extending eastward from the Pacific Ocean as part of President Donald Trump’s planned border wall between the United States and Mexico, the DHS said in a statement. It said the area is one of the busiest U.S. border sections.
“The sector remains an area of high illegal entry for which there is an immediate need to improve current infrastructure and construct additional border barriers and roads,” the DHS said.
The border fence between the United States and Mexico reaches its most westerly point an ends into the Pacific Ocean at Border Field State Park near San Diego, Calif., on April 30, 2017. REUTERS/Mike Blake
