Thread: U.S. still owes money for border fence

U.S. still owes money for border fence

Wrangling ongoing between U.S. and Texas landowners

• A horse grazes the land Friday, May 12, 2017, along the U.S. Border Wall in Brownsville, Texas. Before the wall, there was the fence. And the U.S. is still paying for it. As President Donald Trump tries to persuade a skeptical Congress to fund his proposed multibillion-dollar wall on the Mexican border, government lawyers are still settling claims with Texas landowners over a border fence approved more than a decade ago. Two settlements were completed just this week. (Miguel Roberts /The Brownsville Herald via AP)
• miguel roberts/The Brownsville Herald Horses graze next to the U.S. border fence Friday on Oklahoma Avenue in Brownsville, Texas.
• A carrier delivers mail along a section of border fence Nov. 14 in Brownsville, Texas. As President Donald Trump's administration fights to fund a new, multibillion-dollar border wall, government lawyers are still settling claims with Texas landowners over the fence Congress approved more than a decade ago. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
  

By NOMAAN MERCHANT, Associated Press
Published: May 13, 2017, 6:05 AM

HOUSTON — Before the wall, there was the fence. And the U.S. is still paying for it.

As President Donald Trump tries to persuade a skeptical Congress to fund his proposed multibillion-dollar wall on the Mexican border, government lawyers are still settling claims with Texas landowners over a border fence approved more than a decade ago. Two settlements were completed just this week.

The legal battles over a stop-and-start fence that covers just a portion of the border have outlasted two presidents. If the Trump administration presses ahead with plans to build some version of the towering, impenetrable wall the president has promised, the government may have to take hundreds more landowners to court, perhaps even some of the same ones.
The Secure Fence Act, which President George W. Bush signed into law in 2006 with the support of many Democratic lawmakers, set aside money for fencing to cover one-third of the roughly 2,000-mile border between the U.S. and Mexico.

About 650 miles of fence were eventually built, just 100 miles of them in Texas, which has the longest border of any state with Mexico. The uneven course of the Rio Grande, rough terrain and private land ownership created a host of engineering and legal obstacles and required hundreds of deals with individual property owners for some of their land.
In the Rio Grande Valley, the southernmost point of Texas where most migrants are arrested, sections of the 18-foot-tall metal fencing stop and start in neighborhoods and on farmland.

The U.S. government can use the power of eminent domain to seize private property for a public purpose as long as it pays the landowner what the Constitution calls “just compensation,” but that process can take years if a landowner contests the seizure. The Justice Department eventually filed around 400 claims against landowners under the Secure Fence Act, though the government didn’t build on all the land it claimed.

Some landowners who have successfully resisted the fence for a decade received letters in recent months making them a new offer to settle, raising questions of whether the fence cases would pave the way for a wall. The Justice Department says it hasn’t started any cases related to a new wall and remains committed to settling around 90 cases still pending.

http://www.columbian.com/news/2017/m...-border-fence/

The pictures above is not a representation of the actual fence that was called for in the Secure Fence Act of 2006.

About 650 miles of fence were eventually built

The weak fencing they did actual build included useless vehicle barriers and single-layer pedestrian fencing. Only 36 miles of actual double-layered fencing called for in the Secure Fence Act of 2006 was built.

"The (border) fence is now basically complete."
— Barack Obama on Tuesday, May 10th, 2011 in a speech in El Paso


Obama says the border fence is 'now basically complete'

By Robert Farley on Monday, May 16th, 2011 at 5:03 p.m.


Sections of the fence on the Mexico border, like this one near San Miguel, Ariz., are designed primarily to stop vehicles.In his speech in El Paso on immigration reform on May 10, 2011, President Obama declared that the fence along the border with Mexico is "now basically complete."

Still, he predicted that many Republican opponents won't be satisfied.

"We have gone above and beyond what was requested by the very Republicans who said they supported broader reform as long as we got serious about enforcement," Obama said. "All the stuff they asked for, we’ve done. But even though we’ve answered these concerns, I’ve got to say I suspect there are still going to be some who are trying to move the goal posts on us one more time."

"They'll want want a higher fence," Obama said. "Maybe they’ll need a moat. Maybe they want alligators in the moat. They’ll never be satisfied. And I understand that. That’s politics."

Fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border has long been a thorny political issue, so with Obama declaring mission accomplished, we decided to check it out.

Department of Homeland Security officials told us they have finished 649 out of 652 miles of fencing (99.5 percent), which includes 299 miles of vehicle barriers and 350 miles of pedestrian fence.

But the same day as Obama's speech, Sen. Jim DeMint penned an op-ed for National Review in which he countered that the Obama administration has "not done its job to finish the border fence that is a critical part of keeping Americans safe and stopping illegal immigration."

"Five years ago, legislation was passed to build a 700-mile double-layer border fence along the southwest border," DeMint wrote. "This is a promise that has not been kept. Today, according to staff at the Department of Homeland Security, just 5 percent of the double-layer fencing is complete, only 36.3 miles."

So what gives? Is the border fence "now basically complete" or not?

Not to go all Clinton on you, but it largely depends on how you define "fence."

You need to go back to the Secure Fence Act of 2006, which was passed by a Republican Congress and signed by President George W. Bush. It authorized the construction of hundreds of miles of additional fencing along the border with Mexico. The act specified "at least two layers of reinforced fencing."

But the law was quietly altered in a significant way the following year.

Responding to urging from the Department of Homeland Security -- which argued that different border terrains required different types of fencing, that a one-size-fits-all approach across the entire border didn't make sense -- Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, proposed an amendment to give DHS the discretion to decide what type of fence was appropriate in different areas. The law was amended to read, "nothing in this paragraph shall require the Secretary of Homeland Security to install fencing, physical barriers, roads, lighting, cameras, and sensors in a particular location along an international border of the United States, if the Secretary determines that the use or placement of such resources is not the most appropriate means to achieve and maintain operational control over the international border at such location."

In other words, Border Patrol would have the leeway to decide which type of fencing was appropriate in various regions.

The amendment was included in a federal budget bill in late 2007 despite being condemned by legislators such as Reps. Peter King, R-N.Y., and Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., who argued the amendment effectively killed the border fence promised in the 2006 bill.

At the time, Hutchison told the San Antonio Express-News, "Border patrol agents reported that coyotes and drug-runners were altering their routes as fencing was deployed, so the amendment gives our agents discretion to locate the fence where necessary to achieve operational control of our border."

DHS reports there are currently 36.3 miles of double-layered fencing, the kind with enough gap that you can drive a vehicle between the layers. But the majority of the fencing erected has been vehicle barriers, which are designed to stop vehicles rather than people (see here), and single-layer pedestrian fencing (see here). The design specifications vary depending on geography and climate characteristics, but according to the Customs and Border Patrol website, it includes "post on rail" steel set in concrete; steel picket-style fence set in concrete; vehicle bollards similar to those found around federal buildings; "Normandy" vehicle fence consisting of steel beams; and concrete jersey walls with steel mesh.

That's not enough for some opponent of illegal immigration. "They are interpreting the requirements of the Secure Fence Act in a way that is clearly contrary to what Congress intended," said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors tougher enforcement against illegal immigration.

There may be a role for the vehicle barriers, but "your grandmother could hop over them," he said, and "that's not what Congress thought it was voting for."

Krikorian said, "The president's claim that the job is done is misleading."

A Government Accountability Office report on border security, issued in February 2011, paints a mixed picture. The report acknowledges progress on the fences, as well as hundreds more miles deemed to be under "operational control," but "DHS reports that the southwest border continues to be vulnerable to cross-border illegal activity, including the smuggling of humans and illegal narcotics."

T.J. Bonner, retired president of the National Border Patrol Council, the union that represents all the front-line border patrol agents, said the type of fencing is less important than whether the border is secure.

It is estimated that for every person caught (Border Patrol reported apprehending over 445,000 illegal entrants in 2010) two more get by, Bonner said. "To me, that doesn't seem like border security."

But is it accurate for Obama to claim that "the fence is now basically complete"?

DHS reports that there is now fencing for 649 of the 652 miles described in the Secure Fence Act of 2006. But the vast majority of the requirement was met with vehicle barriers and single-layer pedestrian fence. The original act specifically called for double-layer fencing, and only 36.3 miles of double-layered fencing currently exist. However, the act was later amended to allow Border Security the discretion to determine which type of fencing was appropriate for different areas.

So Obama can make a case that the vehicle barriers and single-layer pedestrian fences meet the amended letter of the law. But we also think Obama misleads, particularly when he mocks Republican opponents, saying that even though the fence has been built, "They'll want want a higher fence. Maybe they’ll need a moat. Maybe they want alligators in the moat." The Border Patrol has not gone "above and beyond" what Republicans requested, as Obama claimed. What they originally requested was a double-layer fence, and they didn't get much of it. And so we rate Obama's statement Barely True.

Editor's note: This statement was rated Barely True when it was published. On July 27, 2011, we changed the name for the rating to Mostly False.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/may/16/barack-obama/obama-says-border-fence-now-basically-complete/