Feedback 'positive' for fence near Paisano Drive
by Daniel Borunda \ El Paso Times
Posted: 09/23/2011 12:00:00 AM MDT

An 18-foot-tall border fence planned to be built along West Paisano Drive would help secure an area once notorious for bandits, a U.S. Border Patrol official said.

The environmental impact of the planned fence was the topic of a public meeting Thursday evening by U.S. Customs and Border Protection that was attended by about 30 people, including uniformed Border Patrol agents, college students and residents.

CBP officials said the planned 0.63-mile fence would be built next spring and would fill in a gap at the only section of the El Paso border that does not have the steel mesh fence. There is already fencing beginning near Asarco running east to Downtown.

"To be honest, I thought they were done with it," said Marcela Najera, 24, one of a dozen students who attended the meeting as part of their government class at El Paso Community College. "I'm probably for it because it will protect our border," she said.

The fence would be built at a spot behind the former La Hacienda restaurant, Old Fort Bliss and where conquistador Don Juan de Oñate is thought to have crossed the Rio Grande in 1598.

Joseph Zidron, a CBP environmental protection specialist, said feedback was positive at the meeting at the Holiday Inn Express in Downtown.

Supervisory Border Patrol Agent Demetrio L. Guerra said the fence is part of a three-pronged strategy using infrastructure, technology and personnel to secure the border.

Guerra pointed out that the fence is for a stretch of West Paisano once called the most dangerous road in Texas.

In the mid-1990s, drivers were warned to avoid that dark stretch of road along the Rio Grande because of border bandits, according to El Paso Times archives. Bandits, usually teens or young men, from Mexico would sneak across the shallow Rio Grande from Juárez. Using boulders, boards with protruding nails and even an old sofa, vehicles were forced to stop so the bandits could rob motorists.

In 1995, there were more than 30 such attacks and police used decoy stings and undercover officers hiding in vehicles to nab bandits. Eventually a 7-foot-tall chain-link fence was built.

The area is generally quiet now, while fences, floodlights, night-vision cameras and Border Patrol agents stand guard.

Public comment on the project is being accepted until Oct. 7. For more information and to comment, visit www.borderfenceplanning.com

Daniel Borunda may be reached at dborunda@elpasotimes.com; 546-6102.

http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_18958289