Quote Originally Posted by U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Five-Year Anniversary Progress and Priorities

Expanded Border Fencing and Patrol: U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has completed more than 302 miles of fencing, with approximately 167.7 miles of primary pedestrian fence and approximately 134.7 miles of vehicle fence now in place. CBP is well on its way to constructing a total of 670 miles of fencing by the end of CY 2008: 370 miles of pedestrian and 300 miles of vehicle fencing.


DHS Report on Border Fencing and Technology Improvements

With such a bald-faced LIE at the beginning of the report, can I believe anything else they claim?

Glenn Spencer and American Border Patrol called DHS's bluff on the bald-faced LIE and did an aerial survey.
ABP spent two weeks analyzing the results and counted 164 miles of actual fence, most of which is not the double fence which the Secure Fence Act of 2006 specified. Most of it is single-layer fence, which border-jumpers defeat with an extension ladder and a length of rope or garden hose. Some of the 164 miles are old sections of fence.
  • DHS Secretary Michael P. Jackson: "We are charged to manage, control, and protect our nation's borders...
    For the entire time that we've been engaged over years in trying to enforce the border, we have never,
    in my view, had a credible plan for taking on control of the entire southwest border."

On July 5, 2006, American Border Patrol responded: "And you still don't. A $2 billion contract will be let in September [2006 - actually, not until March, 2008]. Nowhere does SBI (the Strategic Border Initiative) spell out a goal that can be measured. This is all of the same nonsense we have seen for years. The program will be run by open borders people at DHS/CBP and will accomplish absolutely nothing except lull the people into a false sense of security."

"I don't think double fencing stops anybody," Sec. Chertoff said. "All fencing does is slow people up."
Nothing like a positive attitude from the boss.

'Virtual Fence' Along Border To Be Delayed
U.S. Retooling High-Tech Barrier After Project 28 Fails
(28-Mile Pilot Project South of Tucson, AZ)

Project 28 is "way over budget, way behind schedule - and doesn't work."The government (that's US!) paid Boeing $20 million for 28 miles of "virtual fence" near Sasabe, AZ. Then the government paid Boeing another $65 million to fix what didn't work. But it still didn't work after the rework. So the government paid Boeing $733 million in January for more of the same. The first week of March, 2008, DHS announced that it is awarding Boeing $2 Billion for a virtual fence, although they still have some problems pending. In other words, it STILL doesn't work. Anywhere else but in government contracts, this would be called, "throwing good money after bad."

The Bush Administration has scaled back the virtual fence, delaying implementation of the first phase of the project by at least three years, to 2011.

Glenn Spencer calls DHS's bluff.
"... since the signing of the Secure Fence Act, DHS had not completed 284 of new fence, but only 90 miles. Much of the fence is years old."
(Mr. Spencer, how much of that 284 miles is just five-strand barbed-wire cattle fence?)



SBInet (Secure Border Initiative) report to the House Committee on Homeland Security (Appropriations)

Operation B.E.E.F. video

Operation B.E.E.F. report
"According to a [week-long aerial] survey completed [October 1, 2007] by American Border Patrol, in New Mexico, Arizona and California, 64.05 [miles] of new fencing will have been added to the border in Arizona and California since the signing of the Secure Fence Act of 2006. Of that total, only two miles comply with the specification for a two-layered system."

ABP Survey of the Arizona border in May, 2007

Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) demands the feds build the fence, as originally enacted, by August, 2008

San Luis, AZ: Where the double barrier has been built, it has nearly brought illegal entry to a halt.