Thread: Activists sue over Chertoff's border fence OK

Published: 11.22.2007
Activists sue over Chertoff's border fence OK
BLAKE MORLOCK

Tucson Citizen
Environmentalists filed a lawsuit this week contesting the constitutionality of Congress giving Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff the power to ignore laws interfering with building a border fence.
Defenders of Wildlife filed the suit Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., claiming the Real ID Act yields too much authority to the secretary of homeland security.
Approved in 2005, Real ID gives the secretary the authority to void any law that would impede construction of a border fence. Defenders of Wildlife sued to force an environmental impact survey of plans to build the fence across the San Pedro River after Chertoff decided to void laws that could force the study.
The lawsuit claims giving him that authority violates separation of powers that make Congress the sole legislative body in the federal government. Chertoff has no authority under the Constitution to change law. Striking a law is the same as changing it, according to the lawsuit.
"While Congress itself certainly can repeal or amend standing law to expedite important public purposes," the suit alleges, "it cannot authorize the Executive Branch to repeal or amend the law in its own discretion."
Border security advocates have argued that building the wall is too important to be held up by complying with environmental rules.

http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/daily/local/69555.php

The environmentalist have kept quiet all these years about the destruction of fragile plants and cacti in the desert - yet they think a fence is going to do more harm?

Just me, but I have a bad feeling about the border fence thing. I am afraid many who voted for it and are getting credit for being against illegal immigration knew the battle to get it built would be long and the lawsuits many.

If San Diego built their fence - how did they do it?

nntrixie,
Here is part of an old interview. Rep. Duncan Hunter was the leader behind getting SD's fence done. Apparently he was able to get Congressional approval but took years:

BILL O'REILLY, HOST: In the "Impact" segment tonight, a new FOX News Opinion Dynamics poll says 78 percent of Americans believe the government is not doing enough to secure the borders. And 51 percent want a wall built on the Mexican border.

So last week, legislation was introduced that would build such a barrier. It's called True Enforcement and Border Security Act.

And joining us now from Washington is California Congressman Duncan Hunter, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.

Now in your district, you fought against, I guess, environmental interests and other special interest groups to complete a fence. And then, that fence is almost completed south of San Diego, correct?

REP. DUNCAN HUNTER (R), CALIFORNIA: That's right. And in 1994, when the Republicans took control of the House, the land between Tijuana and San Diego was the most prolific smuggler's corridor in America.

That's the smuggling corridor through which most of the cocaine and most of the people were smuggled from Mexico into the United States.

So we designed and built, Bill, a triple fence. That's three layers of fencing. And we did all of it, except for the one piece in what is known as Smuggler's Gulch.

And we had trouble with the environmentalists. They hung us up for six years. And last year, we got a full vote in the House and the Senate, signed by the president. And we're now going to complete that gap.

But the point is we took an area, a no man's land where you had gangs who were robbing, raping, and murdering with automatic weapons, where you had 300 drug trucks a month steaming across the border from Mexico loaded with cocaine, coming into the U.S. and massive smuggling of illegal aliens. That's where they made the old bonsai attacks where literally, according to the border patrol and the old footage you can see thousands of people would come across the border at the same time, overwhelming the two or three dozen border agents who are on our side.

Against that, we built when the Republicans took over in `94 a triple fence. And we found out it was so effective, we never had to do the third layer.

So we have now a double fence with a border patrol road in between. And Bill, that works. Unless you can pole vault 30 feet, unless all the border patrol is out at the Dairy Queen, and you climb over and you cut a hole in the second fence on U.S. soil with nobody watching, you can't get across that fence.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,175030,00.html

I would like to see see if these guys are constitutional lawyers or if the court they have filed in will even claim to have authority to examine the issue.




"While Congress itself certainly can repeal or amend standing law to expedite important public purposes," the suit alleges, "it cannot authorize the Executive Branch to repeal or amend the law in its own discretion."
Aren't legslated laws modified on a quite regular basis by such things as administrative rules? I think they are under state constitutions, at least.

Thanks, if it took that long for a short distance, I am afraid it will take a lot longer for more distance -