Biden’s border wall won’t fix a broken immigration system – or deter migrants

The Biden administration can, instead, expand labor pathways, update the US's humanitarian protections to meet 21st-century challenges

The Biden administration's plan to erect a new section of border wall is disappointing not only because it contradicts a campaign promise, nor just because physical barriers are a return to the same tired policy responses of the Trump era.

Rather, this week's news around the project - slated for a rural region along the Texas-Mexico border - is upsetting most of all because it stands in stark contrast to the solutions the US immigration system needs right now.

Alexandra Villarreal is a policy and advocacy associate at the National Immigration Forum.