The Trump administration is waiving more than 30 environmental regulations to hasten construction on a 20-mile section in New Mexico of the president's proposed wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.
In a notice published in the Federal Register on Monday, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen announced the waiver so the administration could start replacing vehicle barriers with bollard walls west of El Paso, Texas, at the New Mexico land border port, "an area of high illegal entry."
The Center for Biological Diversity — which sued the administration over the wall last year — is considering taking legal action against the latest action, The Washington Examiner reported.
"The Trump administration is stopping at nothing to ram through this destructive border wall," lawyer Brian Segee told the Examiner.
"Trump's divisive border wall is a humanitarian and environmental disaster, and it won't do anything to stop illegal drug or human smuggling."