Thread: Arizona launches fundraising website for border fence‎

Arizona launches fundraising website for border fence

Posted: 9:17 PM
Last Updated: 14 minutes ago
By: Associated Press

PHOENIX - Arizona officials are gearing up for Wednesday’s launch of a website hoping to collection $50 million in donations to pay for construction of additional fencing along the state's portion of the U.S.-Mexico border.

Under legislation approved in April, the state would use donated money and inmate labor to build additional fencing along parts of the border, likely on state or privately owned property.

With illegal immigration and other border-related concerns still prominent in the state, Republican lawmakers who supported the fence legislation see the fundraising project simply as a way to pay for helping secure the border.

"It's because the federal government won't do it and because the state doesn't have the money to do it," said state Sen. Steve Smith, a Maricopa Republican lawmaker who sponsored the fence bill.

Smith said current plans call for the site to go live at 12:01 a.m. MST on July 20, the date when most laws passed during the Arizona Legislature's 2011 regular session take effect.

A kickoff event will follow Wednesday evening in Casa Grande, in Smith's legislative district. Two prominent Republican state officials, Senate President Russell Pearce and Attorney General Tom Horne, plan to participate.

Later on, there will be other launch events in Arizona, with efforts being made to line up participation by a presidential candidate to help net publicity, he said.

"It's all about scheduling."

The nearly 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border already has about 650 miles of fence of one type or another, nearly half of it in Arizona. The state's border is the busiest gateway for both illegal immigrants and marijuana smuggling.

Republican Gov. Jan Brewer signed the fence bill on April 28 after it easily won approval by the Republican-led Legislature on party-line votes.

While Republicans said the state has a legal and moral obligation to act, Democrats questioned the project's feasibility. They also called it a feel-good distraction from pressing for more comprehensive action on border and immigration issues.

While many facets of the project remain to be worked out, including exactly what type of fencing would be built where and at what cost, arrangements for the fundraising component aren't starting from scratch.

Smith said he's working through details to launch the site through the state's existing web-portal contract, and said the new site will be modeled after the successful site that Gov. Jan Brewer has already used for a year to collect millions of dollars of donations.

That money is being used to pay for the state's legal defense of SB1070., the controversial immigration enforcement law that was enacted in 2010.

Implementation of key provisions of that law have been blocked by a federal judge pending the outcome of a legal challenge.

The fence web site, Smith said, will feature a picture of the border and a "relatively concise" description of the perceived situation -- "drugs, illegals, terrorists, so on and so on" -- to explain it to Americans across nation.

"We're going to have some bullet points on what is going on on the border," Smith said. "It's not just the migrant worker coming over."

On Wed. the link will be www.buildtheborderfence.com
I think.

Arizona Seeks Online Donations to Build Border Fence

Published May 08, 2011
Associated Press

PHOENIX – Arizona lawmakers want more fence along the border with Mexico -- whether the federal government thinks it's necessary or not.

They've got a plan that could get a project started using online donations and prison labor. If they get enough money, all they would have to do is get cooperation from landowners and construction could begin as soon as this year.

Gov. Jan Brewer recently signed a bill that sets the state on a course that begins with launching a website to raise money for the work, said state Sen. Steve Smith, the bill's sponsor.

Related Stories Pope in Venice, urges welcome for immigrants U.S.-bred Criminal Alleged to be the Mastermind Behind Mexico Killings, Mass Graves


"We're going to build this site as fast as we can, and promote it, and market the heck out of it," said Smith, a first-term Republican senator.

Arizona -- strapped for cash and mired in a budget crisis -- is already using public donations to pay for its legal defense of the controversial get-tough illegal immigration law, known as SB1070.

The state is appealing a federal judge's ruling blocking key provisions of the law, including a requirement that immigrants get or carry immigration registration papers.

Part of the marketing pitch for donations could include providing certificates declaring that individual contributors "helped build the Arizona wall," Smith said. "I think it's going to be a really, really neat thing."

Construction would start "after we've raised a significant amount of money first" but possibly as soon as later this year, Smith said.

"If the website is up and there is an overwhelming response to what we've done and millions of dollars in this fund, I would see no reason why engineering or initial construction or finalized plans can't be accomplished," he said.

The nearly 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border already has about 650 miles of fence of one type or another, nearly half of it in Arizona. The state's border is the busiest gateway for both illegal immigrants and marijuana smuggling.

Department of Homeland Security spokesman Matthew Chandler said federal officials declined to comment on the Arizona legislation.

State Corrections Director Charles Ryan said getting inmate labor to help construct border fencing wouldn't be a problem.

Minimum-security prisoners already have been used to clear brush in immigrants' hiding spots near the border and clean up trash and other material dumped by border-crossers, he said.

Work crews of Arizona inmates also have been used to refurbish public buildings, build sidewalks and construct park facilities.

At 50 cents an hour, "we are a relatively inexpensive labor force," Ryan said. "If we have the funding to do it, we're capable of doing it."

Arizona's existing border security fund is being used to pay for legal costs of defending SB1070 in court, though Brewer's 2010 executive order creating the fund allows its money to be used for any "border security purpose." A federal judge has blocked implementation of key parts of SB1070, but Brewer has said she'll take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary.

The fund through Wednesday has received nearly 44,000 donations totaling more than $3.7 million, collected online and through mailed donations since May 2010. Roughly half of the money has been spent, and Brewer spokesman Matthew Benson said the balance is also needed for SB1070-related legal expenses.

Smith and other supporters of the border-fence legislation haven't produced any cost estimates for the state project, saying only that the state should be able to do it far more inexpensively than the federal government.

That still could be put the state's costs in the tens of millions of dollars -- or more.

A 2009 report by Congress' Government Accountability Office said costs of federal fencing work to keep out people on foot ranged from $400,000 to $15.1 million per mile (1.6 kilometers), while costs for vehicle barriers ranged from $200,000 to $1.8 million. Costs varied by such things as types of fencing geography, land costs and labor expenses, the report said.

Brewer signed the Arizona fence bill SB1406 on April 28, and it will take effect with most other new state laws on July 20.

It took the bill about 2 1/2 months to land on her desk, easily winning approval on party-line votes during a legislative session dominated by budget-balancing work

During committee hearings and floor debates, Republicans said the state has a legal and moral obligation to take action because the federal government hasn't done enough to secure the border.

"My constituents want this thing fixed and fixed once and for all, and we're going to do it," Republican Sen. Al Melvin said during a February committee hearing. "People should not be dying in the desert."

Democrats questioned the project's feasibility and called it a feel-good distraction from pressing for more comprehensive action on border and immigration issues.

"If we are here to pass symbolic legislation and not really address border security, SB1406 does the job. But people don't benefit from symbolic legislation," Democratic Rep. Catherine Miranda said before the April 18 House vote.

Under the bill, the border fencing work could be done either in conjunction with other border states or by Arizona alone.

Smith said the committee will consider where to build the fence and what kind of fence is needed.

But the eventual choice could be like double- and triple-fence barriers already installed along the border in Yuma County in southwestern Arizona because they appear to block crossings, he said.

Any type of fence would require approval of landowners, but Smith said he expects that to be forthcoming from the state and private land owners, including ranchers who have complained of break-ins and other trouble associated with smugglers and illegal crossings.

Individual ranchers likely will cooperate with the state fencing project, just as they have done with federal officials on placing helipads, watering stations and communications equipment to help officers patrolling the border, an Arizona Cattle Growers Association official said.

However, the 1,100-member association didn't take a position on the fence bill, said Executive Director Patrick Bray.

"We certainly appreciate the efforts put into this legislation, however the funding is a huge question. It's an empty solution because we don't know where the money is going to come from."
Bray added: "We want to stay focused on the overall border security issue. At this point we are looking for a more comprehensive security approach rather than this pieces that might come to fruition."

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/05/08/ar ... z1ScREA4D1

I live in So Cal and I will donate

Originally Posted by agrneydgrl

I live in So Cal and I will donate

I live in NY and would also contribute.

I would contribute to a fence ( mod edit)

Arizona Officials, Fed Up With U.S. Efforts, Seek Donations to Build Border Fence

PHOENIX — Americans upset about illegal immigration have a new outlet for their rage: a fund set up by the State of Arizona that will use private donations to build a border wall.

Critics call the state’s effort to build its own border barriers a foolhardy, feel-good campaign that will have little practical effect on illegal border crossings. But organizers in the State Legislature, which created the fund, say it will allow everyday people fed up with the inability of Congress to address the problem of illegal immigration to contribute personally to a solution.

Beginning during the second Bush administration and continuing in President Obama’s tenure, the federal government has built more than 600 miles of barriers, some designed to keep out cars and others to block individuals from crossing. The congressionally approved construction effort is winding up, but about 82 miles of Arizona’s 388 miles of border remain without a barrier, federal officials say.

The construction has been expensive. The Government Accountability Office said in a 2009 report that the federal government spent $1 million to $3 million for every mile of border fencing. Arizona, though, intends to use low-cost inmate labor to reduce those costs.

The most likely locations for the state’s planned barriers are on state or private land, organizers say. A committee will determine the details of the wall’s construction after money comes in, according to the legislation creating the border fund, which Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican, signed in April 2010.

Janet Napolitano, the secretary of homeland security, expressed doubts about the effectiveness of physical barriers at the border when she was Arizona’s governor and Congress first endorsed the idea in 2005. “You show me a 50-foot wall and I’ll show you a 51-foot ladder at the border,â€

Donate @ https://www.buildtheborderfence.com/azb ... ndex.xhtml

Related Video

Arizona Launches New Effort to Build Own Border Fence

http://www.alipac.us/ftopicp-1246968.html#1246968

This is a great idea! I like this idea so much that I have replaced the PayPal donation button on my website with a link to BuildtheBorderFence.com because this is capable of doing more for border security than my anonymous listing service ever could or can.

http://illegalalienreport.com/donate/ will stay this way until the fence is built.


Note: I always felt a little silly having a donation button on a commercial website full of ads anyway, so I never did anything to seriously solicit donations on through the site anyway beyond just putting up a button because I could and it seemed like a good idea.