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  1. #1
    Senior Member moosetracks's Avatar
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    7 TX. MAYORS causing trouble with fence!

    Jan. 17, 2007, 11:40PM
    7 Texas border mayors' message on the wall: No
    Capitol Hill policymakers told fence would harm trade and relations


    By MICHELLE MITTELSTADT
    Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau


    WASHINGTON — Texas border mayors carried a clear message Wednesday to federal policymakers: Walling off the United States from Mexico is a costly, foolish idea that will harm commerce, travel and foreign relations.

    The seven mayors, representing cities that stretch from El Paso to Brownsville, raced from meeting to meeting on Capitol Hill, urging Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and lawmakers to abandon Congress' mandate to build 700 miles of fence and instead rely on other border security measures.
    "It's a united front: No to the wall," said Laredo Mayor Raul Salinas. "It's just money misspent."


    Call for sensors, lights
    Instead of fencing off more than 300 miles of the Texas-Mexico border, the mayors recommended that Chertoff and Congress improve border security by using technology such as motion detection sensors and lighting as a "virtual" fence, or by adding more Border Patrol manpower.

    The Texans offered "very practical, very realistic views about what has to happen with border security," Chertoff said after a closed-door meeting with the mayors, organized by Texas Republican Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn. The senators support a fence as a part of an overall border security plan, but insist that local community concerns must be taken into account.
    "Everyone wants border security — they just want to do it effectively," Hutchison said.

    The mayors also pressed Congress to enact a comprehensive immigration overhaul that includes a guest worker program, saying it would take pressure off the border.

    "There has to be a balance in there as to how you protect our security while at the same time you protect our business environment and our economy," said Rio Grande City Mayor Kevin Hiles. (ANYONE REMEMBER JAWS?...ALL FOR $$$)

    The Texans' anti-fence case was boosted, they said, by a recent Congressional Research Service report estimating that the 700 miles of fence could cost as much as $49 billion to build and maintain over 25 years.

    Proponents of the double-layered fence have called that estimate excessive, insisting it would cost no more than $2.1 billion to build.

    With Democrats newly in control of Congress, the fence's prospects may be waning. Although President Bush last October signed into law legislation mandating 700 miles of fence, Congress hasn't fully appropriated money to build it.

    A $1.2 billion appropriation for "strategic fencing" permits the Department of Homeland Security to use the money for other things, and department officials have not committed to using all the money for fencing.

    "You might have a law, but if there is no appropriation to fund it, it doesn't really exist," said Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo.

    House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., have made clear that Democrats will re-examine whether fencing is necessary.


    Opportunity to testify
    Emerging from a meeting with the mayors, Thompson said he would invite some of them to testify before the Homeland Security Committee.

    "We have not heard from people in the impacted area," he said. "We have members from Iowa dictating policy about the fence." ( What about the citizens of those areas, are they going to be heard?)

    The mayors noted that Texas is unique among the border states in having a river run along its entire boundary with Mexico.

    Fencing off the Rio Grande would prevent ranchers from watering their cattle, would harm farmers and place the fence in jeopardy when the river overflows, they said.

    "Fences work, but they don't work everywhere," Hiles said.

    Chertoff said he would defer to Border Patrol Chief David Aguilar.

    "To me, this is something driven by operational needs. It's not driven by some kind of general mandate," he said.

    michelle.mittelstadt@chron.com

    http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/4478479.html

    How do these mayors get so much weight, that they can force their opinions on Washington politicians???
    Do not vote for Party this year, vote for America and American workers!

  2. #2
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    cuz they are elected officials and you and I are not

    of course elected officials will put more weight on what others elected officials are going to say

  3. #3
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    El Paso Mayor's
    (915) 541-4000

    Laredo:
    eMail - rgstexas@stx.rr.com
    City Hall Office: 1110 Houston St., Laredo, Texas 78040-0579
    Office Phone: (956) 791-7400

    Rio Grande City, Texas 78582-4415
    Off: 956/487-0672
    Fax: 956/716-8899

  4. #4
    Senior Member Dixie's Avatar
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    local community concerns
    Forget the Mayors. Call Hutchison! She has been crying about this way before the bill was even passed. She is the catalyst. She has recently went down there or is planning a trip with Chertoff to talk to the border mayors.

    Talk about what? Not putting up the fence! I'm sick of the excuses! I wouldn't waste my time with those sancturary mayors. She knows they don't want the fence, that's why she is talking to them. Get your list of excuses going.

    I want national security and I don't care what those illegal courting mayors have to say.

    Put the fence up and stop making excuses for illegal aliens Hutchison!

    Dixie
    Join our efforts to Secure America's Borders and End Illegal Immigration by Joining ALIPAC's E-Mail Alerts network (CLICK HERE)

  5. #5
    MW
    MW is offline
    Senior Member MW's Avatar
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    "It's a united front: No to the wall," said Laredo Mayor Raul Salinas.
    Our united front is bigger than yours!

    "We have not heard from people in the impacted area," he said. "We have members from Iowa dictating policy about the fence."
    Oh yes you have! The entire nation is impacted, not just a handful of border towns.

    "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing" ** Edmund Burke**

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  6. #6
    Senior Member Dixie's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by MW
    "We have not heard from people in the impacted area," he said. "We have members from Iowa dictating policy about the fence."
    Oh yes you have! The entire nation is impacted, not just a handful of border towns.
    When El Paso’s population is 51% illegal alien then who really cares what they have to say. El Paso is an official sanctuary city and I don't want those fools advising me about what to do. I've already deemed them incompetent. No offense to our fellow Alipacers that are living in that messed up city. I understand your plight.

    Dixie
    Join our efforts to Secure America's Borders and End Illegal Immigration by Joining ALIPAC's E-Mail Alerts network (CLICK HERE)

  7. #7
    Senior Member SOSADFORUS's Avatar
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    This makes me so mad, fighting aclu, la razza and all the rest of them is not bad enough but we have to fight all these people we put in office, come on texas call your mayors and give them an ear full and get everyone else you can to do it to, its really hard for the rest of us to fight from another state, we have to make our home states top priority and its still hard to get them to listen. I'm so mad!!!!
    Please support ALIPAC's fight to save American Jobs & Lives from illegal immigration by joining our free Activists E-Mail Alerts (CLICK HERE)

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