Hostile reception for pro-fence congressmen in Brownsville

Associated Press - April 28, 2008 7:35 PM ET

BROWNSVILLE, Texas (AP) - Colorado congressman Tom Tancredo got a hostile reception today in Brownsville -- a city that has become the epicenter of opposition to a border fence.

Tancredo is among the strongest congressional supporters of building a 670-mile fence between Mexico and the U.S.

Appearing at a congressional field hearing, Tancredo dismissed concerns by residents that building the fence would damage the environment and destroy bonds between residents on both sides of the Rio Grande.

Audience members booed and hissed Tancredo for his remarks.

Opposition to the fence in Brownsville is pervasive.

Brownsville sits at the southernmost tip of Texas, where the Rio Grande meets the Gulf of Mexico.

The border fence would cut through the campus of the University of Texas at Brownsville and Southmost Texas College -- leaving its golf course on the Mexican side.

The hearing was supposed to focus on the authority Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff used April 1st to bypass three dozen laws that could have slowed fence construction.

Work on the fence in South Texas is scheduled to begin this summer.

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