US President Joe Biden's administration is to build a section of border wall in southern Texas in an effort to stop rising levels of immigration.
Around 20 miles (32km) will be built in Starr County along its border with Mexico, where officials report high numbers of crossings.
Building a border wall was a signature policy of Donald Trump as president and fiercely opposed by Democrats.
In 2020, Mr Biden promised he would not build another foot of wall if elected.
His administration passed a proclamation soon after taking office that said building a wall across the southern border "is not a serious policy solution".
In a statement to Associated News on Wednesday night, the US Customs and Border Protection defended the latest move, saying it was using funds already allocated for a border barrier.
"Congress appropriated fiscal year 2019 funds for the construction of border barrier in the Rio Grande Valley, and DHS is required to use those funds for their appropriated purpose," the statement said.
The rising number of illegal border crossings has made the issue a vulnerable one for the president.
More than 245,000 crossings have been made this year in the Rio Grande Valley area alone, government data shows, and September is expected to be a record month.
Several US cities say they are feeling the strain of the influx.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams predicted the cost of housing the more than 100,000 new arrivals since last year will rise to $12bn over the next three years.
Mr Adams is travelling to Mexico, Colombia and Ecuador this week to discourage migrants from setting out. "We are at capacity," he said on Tuesday.
President Biden's secretary of homeland security referred to an "acute and immediate need" to build the new section of wall and prevent unlawful entries.
Dozens of federal laws have been waived in order to approve its construction, including the Clean Air Act and Safe Drinking Water Act.
The move has angered environmentalists, who say the structures will cut through the habitats of endangered plants and animals.
"It's disheartening to see President Biden stoop to this level, casting aside our nation's bedrock environmental laws to build ineffective wildlife-killing border walls," said Laiken Jordahl, a conservation advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity.
According to a proposal by US Customs and Border Protection, the barriers will consist of large bollards embedded in a concrete base, as well as gates, cameras and CCTV equipment.
Homeland Security said it would use funding secured during Donald Trump's presidency to build the new section.
It is the first time the Biden administration has used its powers to approve the construction of new walls - something that was done often during Mr Trump's time in office, when around 50 miles of new wall was built and 400 miles of existing barriers were upgraded.
Speaking to Fox News on Wednesday, Mr Trump blamed the president for causing the crisis by repealing his strict border policies and now having to reintroduce them.
"He has to do all of the [other] things that we were doing," he said.
Mr Biden has been facing increasing criticism over his immigration policies in the wake of a recent surge of migrants crossing into the US.
US Border Patrol apprehended 181,059 people along the southern border in August compared with 132,648 in July, according to the latest data.
Mexico's president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, said that 10,000 people arrived at the border every day last week alone.
A nurse has been found guilty of ill-treating patients by drugging them to "keep them quiet and compliant".
Preston Crown Court heard Catherine Hudson, 54, gave unprescribed sedatives to two patients at Blackpool Victoria Hospital between February 2017 and November 2018 for an "easy life".
Jurors also convicted her of conspiring with Charlotte Wilmot, 48, to give a sedative to a third patient.
Hudson was found not guilty of ill-treating two other patients.
Judge Robert Altham remanded Hudson into custody following the verdicts, which were reached after nearly 14 hours of deliberation.
He said the sentence for the nurse "plainly has to be a sentence of immediate custody".
"The only question is the length," he added.
Granting bail to Wilmot, who was also convicted of encouraging Hudson to drug a patient, he told the assistant practitioner the "overwhelming likelihood" was that she too would be jailed.
'Out of spite'
During the trial, Preston Crown Court heard how Hudson told a colleague in a text that she had sedated a patient "within an inch of her life", adding: "Bet she's flat for a week, ha ha."
The court was told she used different drugs, including insomnia medication zopiclone, which can be life-threatening if given inappropriately.
Opening the case in September, prosecutor Peter Wright KC had told the court Hudson and Wilmot "treated patients not with care and compassion but with contempt".
"They considered them, or some of them, to be an imposition, an irritation," he said.
The court heard the pair were investigated after a student nurse witnessed events on work placement at the hospital's stroke unit and told the authorities in November 2018.
The student nurse told police that when she raised concerns over the use of zopiclone, Hudson told her the patient had a do not resuscitate order in place "so she wouldn't be opened up if she died or... came to any harm".
Lancashire Police said a review of Hudson and Wilmot's messages revealed a significant number of exchanges describing patients and their families in "the most derogatory and cruellest terms".
The court was told Hudson used different drugs, including insomnia medication zopiclone
Speaking after the verdicts, specialist prosecutor Karen Tonge said the pair's actions were "callous and dangerous" and they had shown "utter contempt for patients in their care".
"Their role was to care for the patients on their ward, instead they conspired to ill-treat patients, sedating them for their own convenience and amusement or purely out of spite," she said.
"They grossly abused their position and the trust that patients and their families put in them.
"Now they must face the consequences of their actions."
Det Ch Insp Jill Johnston added that the pair had "treated the patients without care or compassion, laughing when they came to harm and drugging them to keep them quiet so that they could have an easy shift".
"The risks associated with these callous acts were obvious - inappropriately sedating elderly stroke patients could lead to added health complications and even death," she said.
"They were both fully aware of the risks, which makes their behaviour even harder to comprehend."
Hudson, of Coriander Close, Blackpool, and Wilmot, of Bowland Crescent, Blackpool, will be sentenced on 13 and 14 December.
