Details on border fence beginning to emerge
James Osborne
May 25, 2007 - 5:30PM


McALLEN — The proposed 370 miles of new fencing along the U.S. border with Mexico is now planned as a single layer of fence, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman said.

Since Congress passed the Secure Fence Act last fall it was widely expected the fence system would be composed of two fences separated by an access road, allowing U.S. Border Patrol agents to quickly approach people sneaking across. While details on the fence, which will vary from locale to locale, are still being worked out, CBP spokesman Mike Friel said only a single layer of the barrier would be built by the end of 2008.

“We have things called fence labs down in Texas which evaluate a number of different fence designs,â€