Border fence opponents go green
Letter criticizing U.S. security plan also cites 'endorsement' from Job

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Posted: April 23, 2008
10:50 pm Eastern


By Jerome R. Corsi
© 2008 WorldNetDaily

Opponents of a plan to make the U.S. more secure by building fencing along its porous border with Mexico have gone green, claiming such homeland security efforts will harm the environment.

And they even have cited a dispensation from the Bible, quoting the Old Testament suggestion from Job 12:7-10, which begins, "But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds of the air, and they will tell you…"

The arguments have been launched in advance of a showdown hearing scheduled April 28 in Brownsville, Texas, where two subcommittees of the House Committee on Natural Resources are holding a joint oversight field hearing on arguments that a Department of Homeland Security decision to waive environmental and land management laws to build an expedited fence will cause irreparable damage.

On April 1, the Department of Homeland Security announced its intent to issue waivers to certain laws to complete by the end of 2008 some 470 miles of expedited border fence in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.

The laws to be waived include sections of the Clean Air Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, and the Endangered Species Act.

DHS signed a second waiver for the levee-border barrier project in Hidalgo County, Texas.

"A substantial portion of the project areas addressed by these waivers have already undergone environmental reviews," the DHS said. "The department remains deeply committed to environmental responsibility, and will continue to work closely with the Department of Interior and other federal and state resources management agencies to ensure impacts to the environment, wildlife, and cultural and historical artifacts are analyzed and minimized."

But an "interfaith letter" sponsored by a coalition of 20 "religious groups" as diverse as the Alliance of Baptists, the Hispanic Coalition for Comprehensive Immigration Reform and NETWORK, self-described as a "national Catholic social justice lobby," is being circulated to House of Representative members. It says one-third of the U.S. border lies in public hands, "including natural wildlife refuges, national parks and natural forests."

"Large swaths of pristine land provide habitat for an abundance of plant and animal life, including many species that are found nowhere else in the U.S.," the interfaith letter continues.

Calling the U.S. border with Mexico a "fragile ecosystem" that the governments of Mexico and the United States have worked together for years to protect, the letter contends, "Now, hasty construction of hundreds of miles of fencing along the border is destroying decades of cooperation and preservation."

The letter, which then cites the injunction to seek advice from the animals and birds, is being quoted by Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., who introduced H.R. 2593, the Borderlands Conservation and Security Act, on June 6, 2007.

WND has obtained a copy of a letter Grijalva is circulating to House colleagues, citing the interfaith letter and asking for co-sponsors to his plan to require DHS to comply with environmental and land management laws and to consult with Native American Indian tribes and local communities when deciding to build any fence along the U.S. border with Mexico.

Scheduled to appear at the hearing is Joan Neuhaus Schaan, a Fellow for Homeland Security and Terrorism Programs at the Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University, and George Zachary Taylor of the National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers.

Schaan and Taylor both are expected to testify that uncontrolled illegal immigration and the drug war currently raging along the U.S. border with Mexico are doing far more damage to the border ecosystem than building a fence ever would do.

Schaan is prepared to present data on the violence along the border, including increased levels of smuggling activity, burglary and theft, as well as murders resulting from the drug war and lawlessness entailed by the drug war.

Taylor is planning to present evidence of wildfires started by illegal immigrants causing environmental damage to the Pajarita Wilderness area, near his home in Arizona.

The hearing is scheduled at 10:00 a.m. in the Lecture Hall of the Science, Engineering and Technology Building (SET-B) at the University of Texas-Brownsville.

The hearing is a joint oversight hearing of the Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands, together with the Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife and Oceans.


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