Congressmen call on Senate to pass bill to fortify border fence

SETH HETTENA

Associated Press


SAN DIEGO - Two powerful Republican House committee chairmen on Tuesday called on the Senate to pass legislation that would allow the U.S. Border Patrol to fortify the westernmost stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border despite opposition from environmentalists.

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter and James Sensenbrenner, the House Judiciary Committee chairman, said a $58 million plan to beef up the final 3 1/2-mile stretch of border with triple-layer fencing is needed to protect the United States from terrorist attack.

"If we have another 9-11, people are going to ask why we did not act," said Hunter, a San Diego area Republican who has long pushed for a crackdown on illegal border crossers.

Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin added: "It is very plain that we will never have homeland security if we don't have border security."

The committee chairmen, joined by Southern California Republican Reps. Randy "Duke" Cunningham and Ed Royce, pleaded their case along a rugged half-mile long border canyon known as "Smuggler's Gulch," which the Border Patrol would like to see filled in in order to build a road across it. The California Coastal Commission objected and last year denied the Border Patrol permission to proceed.

Royce, who represents part of Orange County, said he had heard from FBI Director Robert Mueller that Middle Eastern nationals have changed their identities, taken on Hispanic surnames and "have been directed to come over the border." He did not say who had directed them.

Later, a dozen protesters criticized U.S. immigration policies and shouted "Make friends not fences" Other protesters spoke against the project as environmentally damaging. Yards away on the Mexican side of the border, several men stood watching the press event, waving to photographers through the single-layer corrugated metal fence that separates Tijuana from San Diego.

Language authorizing the Homeland Security secretary to waive all laws and proceed with the project passed the House in February as part of an $81.4 billion spending bill for military operations in Iraq and tsunami relief for Asian countries. Also included in the spending package was Sensenbrenner's bill to force states to ensure they're not granting driver's licenses to illegal aliens.

The Senate initially said it would not consider the language authorizing the fence if it were attached to the spending bill, said Joe Kasper, Hunter's spokesman. The Senate is set to take up the issue next month.

Peter Douglas, the coastal commission's executive director, said Hunter was "playing the politics of fear" to see the fence built his way.

"If this were really a national security issue, if this were really an issue of terrorism, the president could have overridden the coastal commission's objection a year ago," Douglas said.

The commission objects in particular to the Border Patrol's plans to fill in part of Smuggler's Gulch with 2 million cubic yards of dirt - enough to fill 300,000 dump trucks - in order to build a road across it. Steep, unimproved roads were responsible for the deaths of three San Diego-based Border Patrol agents in recent years.

The commission said the canyon fill would erode soil near a federally-protected estuary that is a refuge for threatened and endangered birds.

"By setting up this fence and basically doing this backfill you're having a dramatic effect on a very important watershed and wetland," said Aaron Quintanar, wildlands conservation program manager with WildCoast, a San Diego area environmental group. "That in turn has these dramatic impacts on migratory birds and endemic species."
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