Okay, so let’s say the White House changes parties in 2020 or 2024. We’ve already got part or all of the border wall completed. (That certainly will take much longer than January 20, 2021). The Democratic challenger for the presidency was very much against the wall.
What does he or she do? Order it torn down? Order the immediate cessation of its construction?
Who told you this?
I’m not saying that we currently have part or all of the border wall completed. I’m saying that in this hypothetical scenario, we have at least part of it completed. Might be all of it, if Trump wins a second term and is in office until January of '25.
Get construction to a safe stopping point (no hazards left) and prioritize use of funds earmarked to better humanely process and for more cost effective border management approaches.
Most likely order that there be a stoppage in wall building. Tearing down the existing wall, though, would backfire politically big time; it would be a waste of money and perceived as going too far.
If Congress has funded the wall it might lead to a lawsuit from Congress if a president decides to stop building it. (assuming the house or senate is GOP and the president is a Dem)
I think the OP has a fundamental misunderstanding of what actually exists along the border.
There is a physical barrier along much of the border where it makes sense. This is mostly, though not entirely, in urban areas. El Paso and Brownsville, for example are bifurcated cities with a strong barrier running through the hearts of their cities. Imagine the downtown area of your favorite major city. Now, imagine a steel fence/wall running through the city. That is what exists in EP/Juarez and Brownsville/Matamoros.
Other areas have natural barriers like mountains, a river, or a desert.
All the Trump administration has done is repaired and maintained existing barrier. Very little to no new barrier has been constructed. The wall is purely a rhetorical device used by Trump to further his “us and them” message. The wall as described by Trump will never be built and has never intended to be built. All a new administration will have to do to stop the wall is to stop talking about it.
Most Democrats would support it. Republicans would get on board if you said you melted it down to make more cages for children. No need to follow through on the cages; they’ve demonstrated they aren’t sticklers for what exactly gets built or doesn’t.
Not tearing it down would be worse; it would be a permanent monument to the ego and racism of a monster.
Heck, when the photos and evidence of the GOP’s level of inhumanity and duplicitousness are finally able to be presented to the world, I suspect there will be strong support for tearing down the pre-existing barriers.
Then the Sierra Club really is without standing as is argued? No potential harm to their interests if no new wall is actually planned or intended to be built ever.
Anyhoo … the op is a hypothetical. IF new wall is being built by the time the, hypothetically, Democratic candidate gets sworn in, how should they handle it? IF.
Yes yes we know that construction so far has not been new wall but repairs and replacements to current structures, and that the value of The Wall is to whip up his base and to control the conversation. But it is an IF thing … don’t wanna play don’t y’know?
In some areas there’s a lot of local opposition to the wall; either to the wall in general or to specific siting, or both. I think taking back down any wall that had been built in such areas would get a lot of support.
Hey – we’re going to give you back access to your back pastures, to your grandmother’s house, to your customers! Apologies for all that damage to your garden or historic church, but would you like a job helping to take it back down?
I honestly don’t think Trump will be capable of more than drooling at a TV set in 2025. More likely he is dead from a stroke or heart attack, or is in the final stages of severe dementia.
And where actual ongoing harms are caused by it that makes sense. But taking it fully down costs money and resources of a finite pool. Just like building the idiotic thing would. Wouldn’t it be better spent on improving conditions for asylum seekers and smarter technology that improves security?
Doing something just to pander to what some people want is how this thing became a thing. Thanks
Hang a sign on it saying “Trump’s Folly”.
The wall is an eyesore, and defending it is a bad look. The government can pay to defend it (no), pay to take it down in a controlled fashion, or just let private citizens dismantle it & sell it for scrap (which is probably fine in some places but might be more trouble than we want where it’s in/by nature reserves).
Tear every inch of it down.
It would really need to come out of the nature reserves, though. One of the multiple major reasons not to build the thing is that it would prevent essential movement of already-endangered species.
It will decay over time, and I’d rather that the hundreds of millions of dollars that would be required for such a demolition project be used to, I don’t know, give asylum seekers humane treatment.
Do you have any pictures of this wall, so we can make a determination for ourselves.