Dueling fence bills coming up in Congress
Expect some fireworks on border-security and immigration issues in this session of Congress, even apart from the swine-flu outbreak in Mexico. Competing bills have surfaced in the House, one which would demand more resources to building the border fence — and the other that would slow or stop fence construction altogether. It might help first to define exactly what a fence is:

Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) introduced legislation to speed up completion of the Mexico-U.S. border fence, mandating an additional 350 miles of fencing by within a year. It’s often reported that over 600 miles of the originally-required 700 miles of fencing have been completed. That’s true, but half of the current fence is designed to stop vehicles, rather than pedestrians. Conservatives contend vehicle fencing–including bollards or poles set several feet apart–do not stop illegal immigrants on foot.

“That figure is misleading because over half the infrastructure along the border consists of vehicle barriers, which do not limit illegal foot traffic,â€