Thread: ALIPAC: Funding for 700-mile border fence falls short

Funding for 700-mile border fence falls short

Tuesday, February 6, 2007
By TODD J. GILLMAN / The Dallas Morning News
tgillman@dallasnews.com

WASHINGTON – President Bush's budget includes enough money to build only half the U.S.-Mexico border fence Congress demanded last fall, leaving supporters of a 700-mile barrier seething Monday and immigration advocates shrugging that it was just an election-year ploy.

With 75 miles of fencing already in place, the $1 billion in extra money proposed for border infrastructure would be used to build 150 miles of fence by the end of this year and 370 miles by the time Mr. Bush leaves office in early 2009, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said. That's far less than the 700 miles Congress approved last fall and Mr. Bush signed into law.

"We are committed to the right fencing at the right place at the right time," Mr. Chertoff said during a briefing about his department's $46.4 billion budget proposal.

Mr. Bush has called for a "virtual fence" that would include barriers, cameras, unmanned surveillance aircraft and sensors, but critics say his reluctance to build the full physical fence demanded by Congress shows he's not serious about cracking down on illegal immigration.

"That was not an if or a but or a maybe. That was a law that was passed," said Bob Dane, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform. "The expectation by the American public is 700 miles of it should be built. ... It's the only tangible statement we have of any modicum of border security at this point."

Guessing the cost
Cost estimates vary wildly. Backers said it would take $2.2 billion to build 700 miles of fence. The Congressional Research Service, a nonpartisan arm of Congress, issued a recent report saying a fence of that length would cost up to $49 billion to build and maintain for 25 years – and 850 miles is actually needed, pushing the tab to $60 billion.

Congress has already authorized $1.2 billion for fence construction, and Homeland Security is using that money for both fencing and other border security infrastructure.

Mr. Chertoff and other department officials wouldn't specify how much of the $1 billion would be devoted to fencing and high-tech surveillance, and such details were not spelled out in the president's massive budget document.

At the American Immigration Lawyers Association, an immigrant advocacy group, deputy director Crystal Williams said the president's stance is thoroughly hypocritical, given that he signed the fence bill into law. On the other hand, she said: "The physical fence has never made any sense. That is all pure political posturing. ... It seems to have lost a lot of the steam from last year. But in the current political climate, you can just never tell."

Few Democrats supported the full-border fence when Congress enacted it last fall. They called it an election year gimmick, and few seemed disappointed Monday.

Republican Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn of Texas, who both voted for the fence, questioned from the outset whether a physical barrier was the most cost-effective approach to securing the southern border. Neither voiced objections Monday to the president's budget priorities.

Mr. Cornyn said he wants "fencing and barriers where appropriate. ... Clearly, the federal government has not done a sufficient job of securing its borders in past years."

Mr. Bush has tangled with House Republicans, in particular, over his push for a guest-worker program. Hard-liners call such a policy a veiled effort to grant amnesty to law-breakers. More than 11 million foreigners are believed to be in this country illegally.

"This president is not enforcing over 90 percent of this country's immigration laws. Why would anyone expect him to be honest or to do his job with the fence?" said William Gheen, president of Americans for Legal Immigration, a political action committee devoted to stanching the flow of illegal immigrants. "That fence runs the risk of being an expensive monument to what was once was known as America."

Administration officials defended their plans.

"There is adequate funding to build 370 miles of fence," said Rob Portman, the White House budget director. "There is significant new resources toward border security, including fence."

The new budget would add 3,000 Border Patrol agents, bringing the total to 17,819 by the end of next year – up from 9,096 when Mr. Bush took office.

Mr. Chertoff also cited recent raids on meatpackers and other employers as evidence that the government is cracking down.

"A combination of worksite enforcement and more vigorous enforcement at the border is our comprehensive strategic approach to reversing the momentum of illegal immigration, which has bedeviled this country for two to three decades," he said.

The budget also includes funding for a new program that would collect fingerprints from all foreigners entering the country, allowing known terrorists and criminals to be turned away or detained.

"This is taking the kind of CSI forensic techniques you see on television," Mr. Chertoff said. "If we have their fingerprints in our system, we can stop them cold at our ports of entry."

'This is not the way to go'
Most of the 150 miles of fence is being built in Arizona along the Barry Goldwater Range – a desert area used by the Air Force for bombing practice

"The rest is really scattered – a mile here, 3 miles there along the southwest border, based on operational needs," said Greg Giddens, executive director of the Homeland Security Department's Secure Border Initiative, which includes the fence and related security upgrades.

Border leaders have appealed to lawmakers for months to focus on alternate approaches to security.

On Monday, Leo Palacios, the mayor of Pharr, Texas, said the message was getting through that more customs officers and border guards would make a bigger difference than a giant divider.

"The majority of the people feel that this is not the way to go. This is not the way to spend money. There should be other solutions to the problem of illegal entry into the country," he said.

About 1,500 cars cross Pharr's 3.2-mile bridge daily from Mexico, and Mr. Palacios called the proposed fence an "insult to our brothers and sisters and friends in Mexico" who shop and support the U.S. economy.

"I don't think the fence is something that is going to convince them that we're good neighbors," he said.

Staff writer Sudeep Reddy contributed to this report.

http://link.toolbot.com/dallasnews.com/59695

"We are committed to the right fencing at the right place at the right time," Mr. Chertoff said during a briefing about his department's $46.4 billion budget proposal.

How about any fence, or the diagrams we have all seen on the Internet (parallel fences with conertina wire on top and road in the middle).

Right place - how about along the entire length of the border, or is that too simple?

Right time - there's no time like the present.

most problems in life can be solved with elementary school level logic - SO JUST SHUT UP AND BUILD THE DAMN FENCE!

the longer they wait, the more our country erodes and the sooner we will be the victims of some Iranian who changed his name to Martinez driving a truck into an oil refinery.

Isn't it just great how jorge won't ask for a measly $2 billion to build the fence, but he'll ask Congress for hundreds of billions to keep his fiasco war going.
Pathetic.

The concern over whether Mexico will like us ... is stupid! I don't care if they don't like us......but they have already shown they don't., just by being here illegally and using up our entitlement programs, while shaking their fists in our faces!

"I don't think the fence is something that is going to convince them that we're good neighbors," he said.

We've tried the "good neighbors" route, now it's time for some tough love!

Originally Posted by sippy

Isn't it just great how jorge won't ask for a measly $2 billion to build the fence, but he'll ask Congress for hundreds of billions to keep his fiasco war going.
Pathetic.

Well you know he has to keep Haliburton in plenty of money!!!Wonder if he is being blackmailed, maybe by Cheney!!!

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W

Originally Posted by sippy

Isn't it just great how jorge won't ask for a measly $2 billion to build the fence, but he'll ask Congress for hundreds of billions to keep his fiasco war going.
Pathetic.

Not only that, but he'll ask Congress to send billions of foreign aide for whatever ails them which usually winds up going into the hands of some petty dictator who will either keep it for himself or give it to the gangs, drug lords or the terrorists. Or he'll ask Congress to spend billions on a prescription drug bill that only benefits the drug companies, corporate welfare and the countless other stupid pork barrel projects like the bridge to no where.

When it comes to securing our borders it's we have no money, but when it comes to globalism, all of a sudden we have unlimited funds. We'll keep printing more money and devaluing the American dollar more. And people wonder why I've switched all my stock to international funds and gold.

Other items of interest in the budget mentioned at the above link:

Eliminates the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program, which this year provided $651 million to states and counties to help defray jail costs for illegal immigrants arrested in connection with crimes other than immigration violations. Texas got $26.5 million in 2005, of which a third went to counties. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison and other Texas lawmakers say they would fight to restore the funding, as they have in years past. The chairman of the House Border Caucus, Rep. Solomon Ortiz, D-Corpus Christi, noted that it's a "perennial" cut Mr. Bush tries to make and said the lobbying has already begun to ensure the funding continues. "It is not for the border counties – with a much smaller tax base – to do pro bono work on behalf of the entire nation," he said.

$4.3 million for a new port of entry facility in El Paso.

Why does this NOT surprise me?