Thread: Border Watch Group asks the Federal Government, "Where'

Border Watch Group asks the Federal Government, "Where's the Beef?"

By Dan Marries/KOLD News 13

The September 11th terrorist attacks brought to the forefront the importance of securing our nation's borders. Six years later the border remains wide open. Last year the Secure Fence Act of 2006 became law. It calls for the construction of 854 miles of double layering fence to be built but progress is slow. Some wonder if it will ever be built while others don't want it at all.

American Border Patrol President Glenn Spencer unveiled a massive survey his non-profit group has been working on for more than a year. It's called B.E.E.F (Border Enforcement Evaluation First), "if the government is going to beef up the border, we're asking where's the beef?" Spencer said with a smile at a press conference he held in downtown Tucson. Using an airplane, American Border Patrol surveyed 550 miles of the U.S./Mexico border including all of Arizona and California.

Shooting hours of video and snapping hundreds of pictures Spencer showed the different types of barriers up and down the border including a massive construction site west of Naco. The survey found: 100 miles of single layered pedestrian fencing. 127 miles of vehicle barriers. 262 miles of barbed wire. 80 miles of nothing at all. And only 17 miles of layered type fencing the same kind required in the Secure Fence Act of 2006.

Spencer went on to say, "he said we're going to have 150 miles of this fence finished by the end of the September," referring to a comment made by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. On July 18th, Chertoff told an MSNBC reporter (quote), "we're on course to building, or having about 150 miles of fence by the end of this September." Spencer says that's impossible, "they won't even have 20 miles of a single layer pedestrian fence finished."

In San Diego there's already a two mile stretch of the double layered fencing called for in the Secure Fence Act of 2006. It's a first layer of fencing separated by a high speed border patrol road followed by a second fence. Joe Kasper, a spokesman for California Congressman Duncan Hunter, says it's having a huge impact on crime and illegal immigration, "crime in San Diego County as a result of the border fence has reduced by 50 percent, that's according to FBI statistics and two the number of apprehensions has decreased as a result of fewer crossings."

But not everyone agrees, like Kat Rodriguez from Derechos Humanos, "even though you talk about San Diego is sealed, El Paso, Jaurez is sealed you go to those areas people cross in San Diego every day. People jump that fence every day." The Secure Fence Act does have timelines. By May of next year the government is supposed to build nearly 400 miles of the double fencing between Calexico and Douglas but at the present pace no one expects that to happen.. Rodriguez hopes it doesn't, "all militarization has done is shift migration flows, it's not been able to control the fact that people are coming."

The fiscal 2007 Homeland Security Spending Bill appropriated one-point two billion dollars for construction of a border "fence" but it didn't specify how much should be spent on two-layered fencing, like what's called for in the Secure Fence Act.

http://www.kold.com/Global/story.asp?S=7066230&nav=14RT

No beef intended..it was all political hype by the President. That won't last now that unsafe and unchecked trucks from Mexico have been exposed.