Thread: With backs to wall, U.S. considers fences

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With backs to wall, U.S. considers fences

By BOB KEEFE, LILLY ROCKWELL
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 04/23/06
SAN YSIDRO, Calif. — Juan Rivas remembers people running through the ball fields near his house, right in the middle of baseball games.

"We'd be at a game and we'd see 100 people, sometimes more, run right through here," Rivas, 32, said as he played with his two nephews recently near the same fields. "The border patrol would be right behind them."

Today, Rivas and others who live in this border town between San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico, say they rarely see illegal immigrants on the run anymore.

Not since the U.S. government erected the fence, that is.

Some here call it La Linea ("The Line" in Spanish) or the Tortilla Wall. Built beginning in the early 1990s, the $70 million border fence that separates southwestern California from Mexico is made of concrete and steel, and is topped with surveillance cameras, sensors and floodlights. It covers about 14 miles, starting at the Pacific Ocean and running inland just past San Ysidro.

And it may grow. Congress is about to debate again a bill that would add an additional 700 miles of walls, broken up in large spans in California, Arizona and Texas. Currently, only about 60 miles of fences are scattered across other spots in California and Arizona. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and other Republicans will ask for about $2.2 billion to pay for the fence, along with training for Border Patrol agents and other security measures.

Proponents say the additional walls, with a high-tech array of cameras, motion sensors and other equipment, are necessary to stem the tide of illegal immigrants crossing from Mexico and protect the United States from terrorists.

"Border security is the first step," for better national security, said Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.). Along with more fencing along the border, Price supports the use of military personnel to oversee it. "We have a very porous border and none of the restrictions or laws in place seem to have any effect."

Talk to people here about how well the wall works, and you'll get mixed reactions.

U.S. customs officials who work on the border say that since the fence was erected, the number of illegal immigrants they've caught has decreased from 530,000 in 1993 to 127,000 in 2004.

But people who live near the fence aren't sure.

"I don't think it does any good, really," said Cruz Ramirez, a Texas native who retired to San Diego County after 18 years in the Marine Corps. Rivas legally immigrated to the United States from Mexico with his parents when he was about 4.

The existing border fence is just up the hill from a nursery where he and his wife sell palm trees and bougainvilleas. Even though Border Patrol officers seem ever-present along the fence, Ramirez noted that plenty of illegal immigrants still get through.

"Every country should protect its borders," said Ramirez, 59, motioning toward the fence and Mexico. "But I think the money [for more fencing] would be better spent on education and getting the government over there to get more involved so their people won't have a reason to cross over here."

Over, under, around, through

Illegal immigrants seem determined to find ways to get over, under or around any barrier the United Statres erects.

Patrol officers have discovered nearly 40 tunnels under the existing fence in the past five years, including a massive mile-long tunnel that is believed to have been used by drug dealers and led to a warehouse near San Diego.

They've also found collapsible ladders next to the wall on the Mexican side, and frequently find places where holes are cut in the fence. There's also been an increase of people who go around the fence and try to enter the country along the California coast, often disguised as recreational anglers.

"We will constantly be battling this cat-and-mouse game that smugglers [and illegal immigrants] play here on the border," said Lauren Mack, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in San Diego.

Neither she nor a U.S. Customs official would comment on the proposal for a bigger fence, saying it is not their place to discuss pending legislation.

Organizations such as the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, a volunteer group that has gained notoriety for its patrols of the border primarily in Arizona, say the fence needs to be extended.

"Clearly the border fence, especially the one proposed ... would eliminate the millions of people we catch a year," said group co-founder Chris Simcox, a former newspaper publisher in Tombstone, Ariz. "We need to continue increasing border security and the security of our coasts at any cost."

Simcox said Wednesday that if President Bush does not deploy military reserves to the Arizona border by May 25, his group and its supporters will break ground on their own fence-building project.

Opponents of the border fence say it only diverts people who want to come into the United States at any cost into more dangerous areas — namely the deadly deserts of California, Arizona and New Mexico.

Last year, 473 migrants died in the desert where temperatures often reach above 100 degrees and rattlesnakes are more common than water. That was up from 330 deaths the year before, according to figures from the Border Patrol.

Advocates for a fence say it works precisely as intended. Immigrants are pushed away from cities and into rural areas, where in some instances they can be located more easily.

Entering U.S. can take hours

The first section of the fence, built in 1992, is made of rusted metal bars taken from old sections of the military's Vietnam-era portable landing strips. A second section, begun in the mid-1990s, is made of metal sheets standing up to 15 feet high and angled at the top toward Mexico.

Together they cover the border just south of San Diego, reaching into the surf of the Pacific Ocean at the west end, and ending in the hills and high desert east of San Diego.

In between, Mexican villages crowd up against the fence on the south side, while the land on the U.S. side is mostly barren.

The main gate along the border fence is where I-5 ends at "Friendship Plaza" in San Ysidro, where more than 25,000 people walk across the border daily. Another 55,000 cars a day fill more than 20 lanes of traffic at the border crossing.

Crossing from the United States into Mexico is easy. Rarely does anybody ask for a visa, passport or other identification. Usually, nobody stops your car. For pedestrians, it takes just a few minutes to walk through the metal turnstiles that separate the two countries.

Crossing from Mexico to the United States is a different matter. Tijuana radio and TV stations monitor and broadcast border crossing times at San Ysidro like traffic reports. Sometimes it takes less than an hour by car or on foot; often it takes several hours.

Anyone who crosses into the United States must show a visa, driver's license, "green card" or other ID to U.S. Customs officials. They must declare anything of value and get their bags inspected for drugs and weapons. Cars and trucks are searched.

Two contries, one culture

The fence may separate two countries, but it can't divide the similar cultures on either side. Spanish is spoken almost as widely on the U.S. side of the border as on the Mexican side. The population in San Ysidro and other parts of southernmost California is almost as predominantly Hispanic as it is in Tijuana.

For many on the U.S. side, the fence is little more than an unnatural part of the local landscape, not unlike a big highway sound barrier or a bridge that slices across a calm waterway. "It's just there," said Rivas, a carpenter. "It's just part of life."

For many who live on the the Mexican side, the fence takes on different meaning. "I don't like it at all," said Tijuana resident Laura Gudino, who has lived all her 56 years in the shadow of the fence.

When she was born in the tiny block house that she still calls home, the fence was a simple structure made of wood, not the intimidating concrete, metal and barbed wire of today. But for Gudino, it has always come with the same distaste.

"The Mexican people go there to work, not to make bad things happen," she said, motioning to the United States.

Sending a message

Mexican President Vicente Fox has called the proposal to extend the border wall "shameful," comparing it to the Berlin Wall.

In Washington, some politicians wonder about the reaction of neighboring countries to the construction of an extended barrier and what it might say to the rapidly growing Hispanic population within the United States.

"What type of message does a wall say to our neighbors in Mexico and South America?" asked Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas). Like some others in Congress, Cuellar advocates a "virtual border" that would instead use more unmanned vehicles and airplanes to patrol the border and track down those crossing into the United States illegally.

Tailored to include some of the same border security provisions that the House passed in December, a Senate proposal mandates 200 miles of fencing in Arizona and doubles the number of border security agents.

But getting an immigration overhaul bill out of the Senate won't be easy. Just before Congress took a two-week Easter recess, a fragile bipartisan compromise collapsed on a floor vote. Republicans are split on this highly controversial issue, with conservatives pushing for border security and moderates wanting a guest worker program as well.

If the plans for a longer fence go through, Enrique Morones — founder of a group called "Border Angels" that sets up aid stations with water and other supplies for illegal immigrants who make it across — wonders what will happen on the nation's other border.

"Are you going to put one on the Canadian border next?" he said. "And then what — are you going to put a lid over the whole country?"

Bob Keefe reported from San Ysidro and San Diego, Calif., and from Tijuana, Mexico. Lilly Rockwell reported from Washington.

"Are you going to put one on the Canadian border next?" he said. "And then what — are you going to put a lid over the whole country?"

If that is what it takes, ABSOLUTELY!!!!

Opponents of the border fence say it only diverts people who want to come into the United States at any cost into more dangerous areas — namely the deadly deserts of California, Arizona and New Mexico.

Last year, 473 migrants died in the desert where temperatures often reach above 100 degrees and rattlesnakes are more common than water. That was up from 330 deaths the year before, according to figures from the Border Patrol.

So? If they're stupid enough to go that way then that is their problem. Why not rebel against Mexico, who is the one creating such a hostile environment that they will risk their lives to try to get in? Mr. Fox should be ashamed of himself.