Sunland Park fence allows easy path to U.S.
By Diana Washington Valdez / El Paso Times
Article Launched: 06/10/2008 02:06:02 AM MDT


A U.S. Border Patrol agent stood near the U.S.-Mexico border near Sunland Park while men on the Mexican side peered under it Saturday afternoon. (Vanessa Monsisvais / El Paso Times)
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SUNLAND PARK -- While a steel and concrete fence is erected in parts of this small town, another older portion of the barrier remains fluid to residents on both sides of the border.

This part of the fence has not yet been updated according to newer plans and instead has large holes and an open concrete culvert -- openings large enough for a person to fit through.

On Saturday, several children peered through a freshly cut hole in the fence, while about 300 feet away, men working on a new water treatment plant in Anapra, Mexico, stood at another larger hole under the fence, which anyone could walk through at any time.

Still, Border Patrol officials say it's an effective barrier.

"We have a crew that goes out there every day to patch the holes," Border Patrol spokesman Doug Mosier said. "It's an effective



barrier because we use other tools as well. We have manpower, and we have technology, such as sensors, night vision, cameras and surveillance aircraft.
"We've never said any one single resource will do the job," he said. "The new border fence will be more formidable."

Ana Zamora, a longtime Sunland Park resident, recalls this section of the border before the U.S. military constructed the fence.

"People walked across the border (illegally) at Anapra often. Then, the fence went up. But, it didn't stop people from crossing the border in that area," she said. "It's kind of odd the way the fence is, but that's how they built it. We've never had any problems with the immigrants from Mexico. We don't stop and ask if they are legal or illegal."

The border fence has another odd feature, a locked metal gate that's big enough for an SUV to drive through.

"It's not our gate and we don't have the key," said Sally Spener, spokeswoman for the International Boundary and Water Commission-U.S. Section.

Border Patrol officials said the gate was welded on several years ago as part of a hole-patching operation.

The new U.S. fence farther to the west also has a gate but it exists to permit IBWC crews to conduct their boundary demarcation

A child on the Mexican side of the border peered through a cut in the fence dividing the U.S.-Mexico border on Saturday near Sunland Park. (Vanessa Monsisvais / El Paso Times)duties.
Mosier said the Border Patrol does not have a timeline for when the fence will be replaced.

But in its current state, the fence is often breached.

Even with Border Patrol vehicles looking on from a distance, children from the Mexican side, as many as a dozen at a time, scale the fence, cross into the U.S. side, and climb back to Mexico.

The former U.S. military's Joint Task Force-6 built the older 1.7-mile fence in 1994. The road is adjacent to Anapra Road 498, a road Sunland Park owns and maintains, and the Union Pacific Railroad tracks.

Through the fence, one of the Mexican children said some border crossers manage to jump onto the trains that chug along every day past the fence.

Border Patrol agents watching the area were skeptical because they said the trains go by too fast.

However, trains have to slow down to a near crawl to maneuver the sharp bend next to the border fence. In the past, gangs from Anapra, Mexico, took advantage of the trains' slower speed to jump on the trains and steal millions of dollars worth of merchandise from the train's cars.

During the flooding of 2006, residents in Anapra complained that their homes were flooded because debris had clogged the concrete culvert, Spener said.

The IBWC sent a crew to clear the culvert, but neither Spener nor the Border Patrol knows who owns the 20-foot wide drainage structure.

Border Patrol Agent Joe Romero said "we don't know why the culvert is situated the way it is, and why the fence was built over it the way it is, but we monitor the area all the time."

Before the fence was built, it was not unusual for people to walk back and forth across the border at Sunland Park-Anapra. Until its 1960 incorporation, Sunland Park also used to be known as Anapra.

Diana Washington Valdez may be reached at dvaldez@elpasotimes.com; 546-6140.


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