Brownsville prepares to celebrate Chertoff's departure
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January 5, 2009 - 6:45 PM
Kevin Sieff
The Brownsville Herald

BROWNSVILLE -- Border communities from Tucson, Ariz., to Brownsville on Saturday plan to celebrate the end of Michael Chertoff's term as U.S. homeland security secretary with piñatas, music and a retirement cake.

There's only one catch: Chertoff isn't invited.

Some of the secretary's most vocal critics intend to gather at Brownsville's Galeria 409, just a few yards from where the border fence is to be constructed, to commemorate what they consider Chertoff's disastrous tenure.

"This is not a protest disguised as a party - this is a party," said Scott Nicol, of the No Border Wall Coalition. "Chertoff has only been secretary for three years but he has managed to do a tremendous amount of damage. Texas will be glad to see him gone, and it can't come soon enough."

A group in El Paso also plans to host a Chertoff send-off party Saturday that is slated to include games of border-fence limbo.

But before groups celebrate Chertoff's departure, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security will begin preparing for the fence's construction in Brownsville.

In a letter to Mayor Pat M. Ahumada Jr. last week, Homeland Security officials wrote that clearing and grubbing is beginning in two city locations where the barrier will be erected - in La Muralla area and on a stretch near River Bend Resort. The two segments total 5.2 miles.

Though the government's deadline to complete the project passed on Dec. 31, plans to build 17 miles of fencing in Brownsville remain unchanged.

"We're still headed toward our goal," said Lloyd Easterling, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection. "The contracts that were awarded (in Cameron County) still stand."

Ahumada hopes to add the city of Brownsville to an amicus brief the Texas Border Coalition filed expressing opposition to the fence. He intends to broach the issue at today's City Commission meeting.

Composed of border mayors, county judges and local economic development officials, the coalition advocates on behalf of communities along the Texas-Mexico border on issues that affect the quality of life in the region. It has been a stalwart opponent of the border fence initiative.

The project has made Chertoff a household name in South Texas as Homeland Security's influence has grown. Created in 2002, the department has become the third largest in the federal government, overseeing the U.S. Border Patrol, U.S. Coast Guard and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

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Kevin Sieff is a reporter for The Brownsville Herald.
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