Thread: Immigrants still will 'find a way'

http://www.elpasotimes.com/ci_4489936

Immigrants still will 'find a way'
By Louie Gilot / El Paso Times
Article Launched:10/14/2006 12:00:00 AM MDT
Click photo to enlargeA U.S. Border Patrol vehicle patrolled Friday along the... (Victor Calzada / El Paso Times)«1»If you believe elected officials, business leaders and community activists, the proposed border fence to limit illegal immigration is either a cure-all or a calamity.
But the people who live in the path of the future fence are hard-pressed to muster passion one way or the other.

Alfredo Alvarez, 61, has been living in his Socorro house for 28 years. He can see Mexico from his front door, and he doesn't think a new fence will make any change in his life.

"You can build a wall 20 meters tall and 20 meters deep in the ground, and they'll find a way to jump it," he said. "The people (immigrants) are going to continue to look for work. Pobrecitos (poor people)."

President Bush has promised to sign the congressional bill to build 700 miles of fencing along the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border. The proposal includes a stretch of fence starting five miles west of the Columbus, N.M., port of entry and extending to 10 miles east of El Paso. No deadline has been set for construction of that part of the border fence.

The only border fence in El Paso runs along the American Canal on the north side of the Rio Grande -- a double layer of fencing topped by floodlights and cameras from the New Mexico state line through El Paso to rural Socorro. Then, just before the Jonathan Rogers Water Treatment Plant, the fence comes to a stop.
At this junction live a handful of longtime El Pasoans.

For them, the sight of clusters of immigrants running north under the cover of night is common. None of the residents interviewed reported any trouble with the immigrants who pass through.

"I have lived here many years. My wife was born in this house and she is 78. I married her and I came to live with her, and I have never had any problem with any of them (immigrants)," said Enrique Hernandez, 80, a retired truck driver living off Southside Road.

One of his neighbors, Elizabeth Madera, a 19-year-old medical assistant student at Western Technical College who lives with her parents, said she welcomed the fence for peace of mind.

"It would be more secure," she said. The immigrants "ask for water and stuff, and we don't know if they are dangerous people who have done things in Mexico. Once in the backyard, my dog was barking and we have a little pool with water in it. I saw a shadow there. I called the cops, but they (the immigrants) were gone."

Others felt pity for the immigrants and questioned the effectiveness of the fence.

"They can go over it or through it. They'll go under it. It might be a little harder but they'll find a way," said Becky Treviño, a 65-year-old federal contractor who lives in Horizon City but keeps a horse off Southside Road.

Immigrants like to hide behind the horse's corral, neighbors said. But Treviño said they never bother her or her horse.

In a trailer home nearby, Maria Mesa, 60, who said that her sons are in the Border Patrol, jokingly called the fence the "Berlin Wall," and said that various recent schemes have barely made a dent in illegal immigration.

"They brought the National Guard and that didn't change anything," she said.

Some elected officials in the United States and Mexico have said that fencing the border sends a negative message when it comes to binational cooperation.

Supporters of immigrants have also predicted the fence would force immigrants to take more remote and dangerous routes to cross into the United States.

Some large Lower Valley farmers have also reported extensive crop damage because immigrants litter and trample fields.

Alfredo Alvarez, who tends small cotton and alfalfa fields along the border on Southside Road, said he hasn't had that problem.

"The immigrants stick to the road. They just want to go as fast as possible. They don't go into my fields," he said.

Border Patrol spokesman Doug Mosier said the Border Patrol would "make the most of whatever resources we get, whether it is infrastructure, technology or more agents."

The fence bill doesn't include funding provisions for the estimated $2.2 billion to $9 billion price tag of the border fence.

Earlier this month during a trip to Scottsdale, Ariz., Bush signed into law a spending bill that includes $1.2 billion for a "security barrier" that could go toward the construction of the border fence.

Construction will probably begin in Arizona and near Laredo because those areas have been assigned deadlines in the bill, H.R. 6061.

Bush has said that he favored virtual fencing, meaning border cameras, sensors, unmanned aerial vehicles and other technology, to a real fence.

"We're just going to make sure that we build it in a spot where it works," Bush said Wednesday at a news conference in Washington, D.C.

"You've got urban areas like El Paso or, you know, Southern California where people have been able to sneak in and -- by use of urban corridors. And so, therefore, fencing makes sense there," the president said.

Bush also said fencing made sense in Arizona, where large groups of immigrants rush the border at once to overwhelm Border Patrol agents.

The fence bill includes provisions to substitute fencing for "surveillance and barrier tools" in steep terrain.

Louie Gilot may be reached at lgilot@elpasotimes.com, 546-6131.

Americans WILL FIND A WAY to get the illegals out of our nation.

Illegals Go Home!

W

Darn right we will!