http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drm...193575,00.html

By Fernando Quintero, Rocky Mountain News
October 28, 2005

Gov. Bill Owens said he supports a high-tech fence along the 2,000- mile U.S.-Mexico border similar to what Israel is building on the West Bank.

Owens, whose remarks were made on Peter Boyles' morning radio show Thursday, called for putting up a "nonfatal fence that had monitors on it."

Talking about immigration reform, Owens said, "the system needs to be changed. There's actually a way to do it that, I think, is humane and would solve the problem. That is, first of all, close the border."

He said he checked on the cost of the Israeli fence, which amounts to $1.6 million per mile. The cost for spanning the entire U.S.-Mexico border would add up to about $3.2 billion.

"Through that fence, people who want to come and get in line to be citizens - that's stream one," he said. "Second are guest workers who are identified, they are fingerprinted, they have permanent identification and they are here for a fixed period where there's a job.

"And if they lose a job, they lose their ability to stay here, and they have to go back."

Denver immigrants' rights activist Lisa Duran denounced the idea.

"Proposals like this will only sharpen the humanitarian crisis occurring on our southern border," she said. "The only solution will come when we look at the push factor forcing people from their homelands, and the pull factors bringing them here."