Thread: Border-fence plan raises Texas senators' hackles

Michelle Mittelstadt
Houston Chronicle
Sept. 20, 2006 12:00 AM

WASHINGTON - A Senate plan to build 700 miles of border fencing hit a snag Tuesday when Texas' senators said the Department of Homeland Security and border communities, not Congress, should decide where the fence is built.

The objections by Republican Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn complicated plans by Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., to win passage this week of a bill intended to showcase to voters the GOP's commitment to border security. The House passed an identical fencing bill last week, with specific locations for the fence.

"I don't want Congress mandating where fences go," Hutchison said. "We have done a lot, and we're going to continue to work on border security, but we have to let the department put the resources where they are most needed."
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Cornyn agreed about the barrier along the Mexico border.

"For Washington to try to dictate to places like Laredo, Texas, exactly where fences need to be built is, to my mind, ludicrous," he said.

Homeland Security officials are best positioned to determine how to deploy a mix of fences, electronic surveillance, Border Patrol agents and unmanned aerial vehicles, said Cornyn, who chairs the Senate immigration subcommittee.

The possibility that other senators would add sweeping amendments to the bill further clouded its prospects.

Some Republicans worried that Democrats would try to attach a broader immigration package that would create a guest-worker program and let undocumented immigrants work toward citizenship.

Also, Republicans eager to help agribusiness interests that are struggling to find workers might try to tack on an agricultural guest-worker program, according to Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada.

Frist defended his effort to pass a border-security bill that fell short of President Bush's demand for a comprehensive immigration overhaul.

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepubli ... e0920.html

Maybe the fence should go around Washington DC
Geezz!

What a joke. Why don't you guys build the fence in a circle and put it in Minnesota or around your house.

More games and same bs. Especially from two Texas Senators who's State is crushed by Mexico.

They can talk fence all day -- it will never be built even if the bill was passed.

Originally Posted by RonLaws

What a joke. Why don't you guys build the fence in a circle and put it in Minnesota or around your house.

More games and same bs. Especially from two Texas Senators who's State is crushed by Mexico.

They can talk fence all day -- it will never be built even if the bill was passed.

Oh RON,
those two senators are OPEN BORDER/SPP traitors. All talk and a knife in the back when the votes are to come to the floor. Cornyn has gotten away with it for a long, long time.

Would this be the same Dept. of Homeland security that wasted almost $1B in taxpayer dollars purchasing temporary housing for Katrina victims, less than 1/4 of which ever had a single occupant? We're supposed to believe that those unanswerable bureaucratic clowns are better suited than ANYONE to figure out how the fence should be built? Leave it to those bozos and 90% of it will be built on the Canadian border or along the Pacific coastline!

Hey CROCKET!

Yupper, that be the one and only, LOL. The one who doled out millions to people who just 'said' they were victims so that they could have face lifts and tats and buy jewelery. Yup, the very same HOMELAND OF INSECURITY AND GRAFT.

Lord, but don't you feel safer now?

GO TEXAS.........what the heck happened to Texan's individuality and independence. They've turned into Bostonians, New Yorkers and Jerseyites