Border wall construction remains paused in Arizona and elsewhere along the U.S.-Mexico border, even though the Biden administration’s 60-day evaluation period ended last weekend.
President Biden paused border wall construction on Jan. 20 and directed federal officials to evaluate wall projects and contracts.
A male jaguar not previously detected by researchers was videotaped just three miles south of the recently constructed border wall between Mexico and the United States.
The jaguar appeared for the first time on camera traps along the riparian corridor of Cajon Bonito in Sonora, Mexico. The lands where the jaguar was recorded have been managed by the Cuenca Los Ojos foundation to preserve and restore biodiversity during the last three decades. Researchers have dubbed the jaguar El Bonito.
Credit: Ganesh Marin, the project leader, is a Ph.D. student in the School of Natural Resources and the Environment at the University of Arizona and a National Geographic Early Career Explorer. The research project is a joint effort of the University of Arizona and the University of Wyoming in collaboration with the Cuenca Los Ojos Foundation and members from Santa Lucia Conservancy, National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), Phoenix Zoo and Arizona State University.
He ordered officials to develop a plan and then “take all appropriate steps to resume, modify, or terminate projects,” according to Biden’s Jan. 20 proclamation.
The 60-day period ended last weekend, but construction remains paused as of Friday, March 26, according to the public affairs office of the Army Corps of Engineers, which oversees border wall contracts. The Corps referred questions to the Defense Department, which could not be reached Friday for comment.
At the time of Biden’s proclamation, the wall stood along more than 220 miles of Arizona’s border with Mexico, at a cost of roughly $4.8 billion, and about 230 miles of border in California, New Mexico and Texas. Federal officials had planned to build about 20 more miles of wall in Arizona.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told members of Congress at a March 17 hearing that he would not ask Biden to continue building the wall.
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