Thread: Hopes, doubts greet border-fence plan

Hopes, doubts greet border-fence plan

WASHINGTON — With a green light from Congress, proposals to erect hundreds of miles of fences along the southwestern border are moving closer to reality, but advocates face many challenges, including right-of-way issues and diplomatic friction with Mexico.

The Senate endorsed its version of border barriers last week, calling for 370 miles of triple-wide fencing that will cost at least $1 billion. A more expansive $2.2 billion House plan envisions nearly 700 miles of fencing in each of the four states bordering Mexico.

The proposals, included in separate immigration bills, reflect a growing outcry to plug the nation's borders as Congress works on legislation to deal with the 11 million to 12 million illegal immigrants who have entered the United States in the past 20 years.

Calls for extensive border fencing traditionally have gone nowhere in Congress. But the momentum has shifted in the post-Sept. 11 era, with lawmakers lining up behind measures that would stretch fencing across nearly one-fifth of the approximately 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border.

"We're going to build," Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., the architect of the House proposal, said Friday.

The Senate voted 83-16 to support fencing in sections of the border especially vulnerable to illegal immigration and drug smuggling. The Senate plan, endorsed by President Bush, is based on recommendations by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who is overseeing the administration's plans to toughen border security.

Hunter's proposal, passed by the House in December, designates fencing in five specific sections of the border in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. They range from a 10-mile stretch in California to three segments in Texas totaling nearly 370 miles.

Security concerns

The congressional embrace of expanded fencing stems in part from a growing grass-roots clamor for toughened national security. A citizens lobbying group, WeNeedAFence.com, for example, has called for an elaborate, multifaceted fence stretching the length of the border.

Members of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, which has drawn controversy and international attention with its volunteer border watchers, also plan to erect fences on private ranch land along the border, spokeswoman Connie Hair said.




Some, however, fear the proposals could soil the country's welcoming image and undercut relations with Mexico. Mexican President Vicente Fox has denounced proposals for a fence between the two countries and expressed opposition to the Senate plan last week.

Those sentiments are especially strong in U.S. cities along the border where civic leaders and business groups fear the proposed fences will chill friendly relations and robust trade with residents in sister cities in Mexico.

"It will have a negative impact all across border communities," said Richard Dayoub, president of the Greater El Paso (Texas) Chamber of Commerce, which works closely with business leaders in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.

The proposals also have prompted criticism from environmental groups, which worry that even the more modest Senate proposal would spoil pristine areas and endanger the habitats of wildlife that wander freely across the border.

Rob Smith of Phoenix, the Southwest representative for the Sierra Club, said Senate-proposed fencing in Arizona could cut through up to nine protected areas covering more than 1 million acres. "It would be a major development in the middle of what is now a world-class national landscape," he said.

Construction also could cause monumental logistic problems, including right-of-way issues and potential eminent-domain proceedings to allow the government to confiscate land. More than 90 percent of the estimated 11.8 million people living along the border in the United States and Mexico are clustered in 14 sister cities.

Mixed success

Will more fences make the U.S. border with Mexico more secure?

Currently, some 75 miles of security fence and 50 miles of vehicle barriers are scattered in segments along the southern border. Evidence of their effectiveness is mixed. Migrants have tunneled under fences, scaled them and cut through with blowtorches. When all else failed, they have gone around.

There are various types of fencing on the border. Some are formidable metal barriers constructed from surplus military "landing mats," huge slabs of metal originally used in makeshift airstrips. There are concrete "bollards." And there is barbed wire.

The Senate bill would rebuild and extend double- and triple-layer fencing and barriers near Douglas, Lukeville, Nogales and other Arizona border towns. The measure also would add 370 miles of triple-layer fencing and 500 miles of barriers to various areas frequented by smugglers and illegal immigrants.

The construction of more formidable fencing along the border began in the 1990s. While it has diverted illegal immigrants from urban areas where they can cross quickly and blend in easily, it has not reduced the overall influx of migrants, estimated at about 750,000 a year.

Even in the San Diego area, with its triple-layer fence that soon could be a model for the rest of the border, federal officials say it takes more than fences to keep immigrants out.

The fortification of the San Diego-Tijuana border began in 1994 with construction of a 14-mile fence, consisting of 8-foot-high steel panels. A few years later a secondary fence — a more formidable nine-mile barrier — was erected. Hundreds of new agents were added over the years.

The beefed-up border substantially reduced illegal crossings. Apprehension numbers dropped from 524,231 in 1995 to 126,908 last year in the San Diego sector, which stretches 66 miles along the border. Violent crime in San Diego County also dropped substantially, federal and local officials said.

The improvement cannot be attributed only to the fence, outside experts and Border Patrol officials said. Increased staffing, stadium lighting and motion sensors were crucial factors.

"There is not one single element that is going to achieve border security," said Richard Kite, a Border Patrol spokesman. "It is not a fence, it is not personnel, it is not technology, it is not infrastructure; it is the proper combination of those factors."

Maintaining fences is labor- and resource-intensive. All-weather access roads must be built for patrol vehicles. Cameras and sensors must be installed to monitor critical areas. Border Patrol agents must be available to respond when an intruder is detected.

The barrier itself becomes a target for people smugglers and drug runners, and must be maintained and repaired. Agents patrolling the fences have been attacked.

"There is a steady crew working for the Border Patrol to re-solder the holes in the fence that have been made the night before," said Ray Borane, mayor of Douglas, Ariz., where landing mats have been used.

Illegal immigrants "brought a portable metal grinder to cut through the landing mats," Borane said.

"The fences may as well not exist to them."
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/p ... ekr21.html

The minuteman have announced their groundbreaking for the fence the are going to build. It is designed on the fence the Isreali government put up on the border which keeps out 95% of illegal crossings. If it works there it would work here. Not only that the Minuteman fence is a fraction of the cost of the governments plan.

Who wants to take bets on whose fence gets done faster, cheaper, and whose fence is more effective?

The proposals also have prompted criticism from environmental groups, which worry that even the more modest Senate proposal would spoil pristine areas and endanger the habitats of wildlife that wander freely across the border.

Rob Smith of Phoenix, the Southwest representative for the Sierra Club, said Senate-proposed fencing in Arizona could cut through up to nine protected areas covering more than 1 million acres. "It would be a major development in the middle of what is now a world-class national landscape," he said.

Construction also could cause monumental logistic problems, including right-of-way issues and potential eminent-domain proceedings to allow the government to confiscate land. More than 90 percent of the estimated 11.8 million people living along the border in the United States and Mexico are clustered in 14 sister cities.

What about all the trash that the illegals are leaving now? Right-of-way issues and eminent-domain.....the government can seize land to build a Wal-Mart but we're not ready to do it to secure our border??

They are posting signs now in the federal parks saying that it is dangerous. Rangers are being shot.
What do these Sierra Club people want? Are they that stupid?