This Op-Ed piece by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) appeared on the website of "Human Events" last night, but it is no longer there. I had to 'google it' to find it.

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May 17, 2010

Finish the Border Fence Now

Human Events
by Jim DeMint

There’s been a lot of hand-wringing over Arizona’s attempt to enforce our nation’s immigration laws but not much information about how the federal government has dropped the ball.

Four years ago, legislation to build 700-miles of double-layer border fence along the Southern border was supported by then-Sen. Barack Obama and signed into law by President Bush. Yet, only a fraction of that fencing is in place today.

According to staff at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), only 34.3 miles double-layer fencing has been completed along the Southern border. Most of that fencing, 13.5 miles, is in Texas, while 11.8 miles are in California and 9.1 miles of double-layer fencing are up in Arizona.

The lack of double-layer fencing can be traced to a 2007 amendment that eliminated the double-fencing requirement and allowed the DHS the option to put other types of less effective fencing in its place. It was lumped into a massive, omnibus-spending bill that President Bush signed into law on December 26, 2007.

That’s when construction on the double-layered fence essentially stopped. The Government Accountability Office (GAO), Congress’s investigative arm, reported in early 2009 that only 32 miles of double-layer fencing had been built. That means under President Obama, only 2.3 miles of it has been built over an entire year.

Because I knew the fence wasn’t a priority for the Obama Administration, in July 2009 I offered an amendment to the DHS spending bill to force the President to finish the fence by the end of 2010. It passed easily with 21 Democrats supporting it.

Under pressure from the White House, however, Democrat leaders stripped my amendment out of the bill behind closed doors, during negotiations between the Senate and the House.

Those who oppose the double-layer fence promise Americans a “virtual fenceâ€