Texas Officials Want Wider River, Not Higher Fences

Wednesday, November 28, 2007 9:12 PM

By: Clayton R. Reid




Mayors in historic towns along the Texas-Mexico border say the way to thwart illegal immigration is to make the Rio Grande wider, deeper and harder to cross.

The officials in cities such as Brownsville, El Paso and Laredo want feds to halt ongoing efforts to build a 700-mile border fence through their communities.

The fence, many complain, cedes thousands of acres of U.S. land to Mexico, splits historic towns in two, and cuts farmers off from their primary water supplies.

On top of that, the fence won’t curb immigration and sends a bad message to the rest of the world. Widening the river, they maintain, is a more effective and environmentally friendly way to stop illegal immigration and smuggling.

“We want to create a weir dam that would hold river water back to keep it from just flowing out into the Gulf,â€