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  1. #1
    Administrator Jean's Avatar
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    U.S. seeks Texas landowners' help on border surveillance

    U.S. seeks Texas landowners' help on border surveillance

    10:05 PM CDT on Monday, April 23, 2007
    New York Times News Service

    WASHINGTON – Intent on fortifying the U.S.-Mexico border with a mix of surveillance equipment, personnel and fencing, the federal government this week starts in earnest the delicate process of getting Texas landowners' cooperation – and use of their property.

    The Department of Homeland Security is deploying an arsenal of ground sensors, lighting, remote video surveillance, observation towers, vehicle barriers, fencing and roadways, all in the name of deterring illegal immigration and improving national security. It's all part of a $7.6 billion strategy, known as the Secure Border Initiative, designed to bring the Southwest border under operational control by 2011, according to the Houston Chronicle.

    Fencing, which Congress has mandated along 700 miles of the nearly 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico boundary, has proven by far the most controversial aspect of the plan – particularly in Texas, which has a long history of close economic and social ties with nearby Mexican communities.

    Homeland Security officials have sought to blunt that opposition, saying fencing will be installed chiefly in urban, high-traffic locations.

    The agency will rely on sensors, radar, unmanned aerial vehicles and a beefed-up Border Patrol elsewhere along a border that is by turns rugged mountain, cityscape, arid desert and gentle riverbank.

    Still, securing the land rights in Texas will prove far more complicated than in Arizona, where the earliest Secure Border Initiative pilot programs have started. Texas, unlike Arizona, has very little land at the border controlled by the Interior Department, the military or Indian tribes.

    Border Patrol officials in Texas will fan out to talk to landowners and government officials, assessing on a case-by-case basis whether to offer to lease, buy or get access for free to the land they need.

    "No option is off the table, but clearly we are not going to go out to the landowner and say, 'We are starting out with eminent domain,"' said Greg Giddens, head of the Secure Border Initiative. Governments use eminent domain laws to seize land for public projects.

    In an interview Monday, Giddens said Border Patrol officials would work with landowners to address their concerns.

    "I suspect there are going to be a lot of different views when we engage in the outreach," he said. "We will clearly have some hard spots."

    Fencing will be a very difficult sell, said Eagle Pass Mayor Chad Foster, who heads a coalition of border elected officials who support increased border security but oppose such barriers.

    "Nobody is against cameras and sensors," Foster said. "Now a physical barrier – we have issues with physical barriers."

    Fencing is the last option, Giddens said, considered only if the surveillance equipment and vehicle barriers aren't enough for the location. Triple-layered fencing costs $3 million a mile, he estimated, By contrast, a mile of reinforced posts designed to block vehicles costs $1.5 million. And the "virtual" fence of sensors, cameras and lighting is less than $1 million a mile.

    "We are not in the business to build fences just to build fences," Giddens said. "We are in the business to secure borders."

    Dob Cunningham, a former Border Patrol agent who owns a 700-acre ranch in Maverick County that fronts the Rio Grande for two miles, said he and his fellow ranchers would oppose any fencing. While fencing may work in flat desert terrain in Arizona and New Mexico, Cunningham said, it would be ineffective along the Rio Grande, with its arroyos, bends and sometimes steep banks.

    In many ways, Cunningham fits the profile of what Giddens is hoping to find: A landowner eager to improve national security and tired of the damage that the never-ending flood of illegal crossers does to his property. Cunningham already has allowed the Border Patrol to deploy sensors and an observation post on his ranch – foregoing the $500 monthly lease offered by the government.

    "It was a patriotic duty that we wanted to help secure the border," he said.

    But Cunningham is leery of giving the Border Patrol greater access to his land, saying the rush to hire new agents has allowed some criminal elements to enter the force. He said he and fellow ranchers suspect some agents are in cahoots with the drug and immigrant smugglers.

    "It's not widespread, but it's just enough to concern us that they are hiring thugs and misfits," he said.

    Border Patrol spokesman Xavier Rios denied that corruption has increased within the ranks or that standards have been lowered as the force swells to 18,000 agents by the end of next year.

    "If I'm not mistaken, last year there were about a dozen Border Patrol agents that may have been convicted of public corruption in one form or another," Rios said. "Twelve out of 13,000 – that's very low."

    Some along the Rio Grande welcome the chance for increased cooperation with the Border Patrol and say they are heartened by the government's willingness to reach out to the locals.

    In Eagle Pass, the Border Patrol and the city recently struck a compromise that worked well for both sides, the mayor said. The municipal golf course, nestled between two international bridges, now has a lighting system and a road that is both improving the property and the Border Patrol's visibility of the Rio Grande, Foster said.

    The city allowed the Border Patrol to chop down the tall Carrizo cane that limited visibility to the river. And the Border Patrol backed off of a plan to install a decorative fence along the golf course and a nearby park after city leaders objected.

    "It can be made a win-win situation as long as we continue the dialogue," Foster said.

    http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent ... d9c26.html
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  2. #2
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    I can see it now, landowner provides help on border security. The ALCU sues the homeowner for violating the "rights" of illegals and his land is then granted to the illegals.

  3. #3
    Senior Member Hylander_1314's Avatar
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    Or quickly confiscated without issue by emminent domain. I would be very cautious, and get everything in writing, as the government are about as snakey as the serpent of Eden.

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