Texas Congressman OK with Hiccup in Trump's Border Wall Plan, Endorses After Meeting

BY NICHOLAS BALLASY JULY 8, 2016

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Donald Trump arrives to meet with Republican House members at the Capitol Hill Club in Washington on July 7, 2016. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen)

WASHINGTON – Presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump picked up another endorsement from a member of Congress after his Thursday closed-door meeting with House Republicans.

Rep. Kenny Marchant (R-Texas) called Trump “authentic” and said he heard everything he needed in order to make the final decision to get behind Trump.

Marchant said Trump assured congressional Republicans that he would reverse President Obama’s executive actions, specifically the executive orders pertaining to illegal immigration known as Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) and the expansion of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).

“I thought he was authentic. I thought he was exciting. I thought he was genuine. It’s what I needed to make my final decision, to make a formal endorsement, so we’re working on the language right now,” he told PJM on Capitol Hill after Trump’s meeting with House Republicans.

“I didn’t walk in intending to be swept off my feet but I was impressed,” he added.

Going forward, Marchant recommended that Trump’s campaign allow more one-on-one time with elected officials before his campaign events.

“Absolutely, one-on-one contact with him is usually a big convincer,” he said. “His campaign has generally not been run that way but I think after today he sees the value in getting a back-and-forth. We kind of want to know if we come up with an idea, is it going to be something they seriously consider or reject it? After today I am quite sure he and Paul [Ryan] have worked out a working relationship, not a perfect relationship, but a working relationship.”

Marchant predicted there would likely be a “healing effect” after the convention since most of his constituents supported Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) for president.

“Louie Gohmert spoke positively,” Marchant said. Rep. Gohmert (R-Texas) had endorsed Cruz.

“I mean, it’s beginning to happen and this FBI-Hillary thing is helping a lot. My grassroots people are just going nuts,” he added.

Marchant said that eminent domain would hold up the rights to construct a wall at the border in Texas, as Trump has proposed as a way to combat illegal immigration. Despite this, Marchant said Trump could make the necessary changes to ensure the nation’s existing immigration laws are enforced.

“One of the most important things Trump said today was that he would love to work with Congress. But he realizes things get blocked up and all of these executive orders that Obama has been using to change the landscape of American politics, he can go in and reverse them with our consulting and the Senate – so a lot of that will be the immigration stuff,” he said. “So he can do a whole lot of enforcement – a lot of tightening up the immigration system without building a wall. There’s a lot of work to be done administratively, etc., just telling border agents to arrest people.”

Marchant was alluding to some Border Patrol agents reportedly being directed to “catch and release” individuals stopped for crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally.

Rep. Kristi Noem (R-S.D.), who attended Trump’s meeting with House Republicans, said there was no “controversy” there.

“It was fine. I mean, he didn’t say anything new. There was no controversy,” she said.

Noem was asked about a Wall Street Journal report that said a substantial amount of delegates are planning to form a coup and deny Trump the nomination at the convention.

“I haven’t heard that,” she said, adding that she does not think anything would prevent Trump from becoming the nominee at this point.

The Washington Post reported on tension at the Senate meeting between Trump and Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.). Flake introduced himself as “the other senator from Arizona — the one who didn’t get captured — and I want to talk to you about statements like that.” Trump reportedly threatened to start publicly attacking the senator, while Flake urged Trump to stop attacking Mexicans. When Trump declared that Flake would lose this year, the senator noted that he’s not up for re-election.

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), a potential vice presidential pick and an early Trump endorser, praised the real-estate mogul’s handling of the meeting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHb0TVZLKu0

https://pjmedia.com/election/2016/07...after-meeting/

A lot of the wall already exists but needs to be replaced and beefed up. Herd them way out into the desert where it is desolate where they can be caught and turned around until the WHOLE wall is built.

Now work on cutting off ALL taxpayer funded benefits to non-citizens and that includes our schools! No more incentive to come here.

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Despite this, Marchant said Trump could make the necessary changes to ensure the nation’s existing immigration laws are enforced.

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That and reversing the executive orders would be a great beginning!

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Originally Posted by Beezer

A lot of the wall already exists but needs to be replaced and beefed up. Herd them way out into the desert where it is desolate where they can be caught and turned around until the WHOLE wall is built. . .

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Most of California has a border fence.
Most of Arizona has a border fence.
Most of New Mexico has a border fence.
Of the 1,254 miles of border in Texas
there is only 100 miles of fence in Texas.

. . . "As a result of the Secure Fence Act passed in 2006, the government built some 650 miles of fence along the 1,954-mile US-Mexico boundary. While 1,254 miles of that border is in Texas, the state has only some 100 miles of fence. . .

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2...cure-fence-act

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In this Nov. 17, 2008 file photo, a U.S. Border Patrol vehicle stands guard along the border fence with its concertino wire topping it, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Lenny Ignelzi, File) — AP

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Originally Posted by JohnDoe2

Most of California has a border fence.
Most of Arizona has a border fence.
Most of New Mexico has a border fence.
Of the 1,254 miles of border in Texas
there is only 100 miles of fence in Texas.

. . . "As a result of the Secure Fence Act passed in 2006, the government built some 650 miles of fence along the 1,954-mile US-Mexico boundary. While 1,254 miles of that border is in Texas, the state has only some 100 miles of fence. . .

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2...cure-fence-act

http://cdn.sandiegouniontrib.com/img...15c2d8bc4ecd52
In this Nov. 17, 2008 file photo, a U.S. Border Patrol vehicle stands guard along the border fence with its concertino wire topping it, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Lenny Ignelzi, File) — AP

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I don't think the fencing that was put into place was what was called for in the Secure Fence Act of 2006. The Secure Fence Act of 2006 called for double-layered fencing with a high speed road between fences. I believe it also called for sensors, cameras, and stadium lighting. Our government likes to consider any old block they throw up as fencing these days. Even those vehicle blocking poles they put up are considered fencing in their minds. A true working fence is like the one installed in San Diego, Ca. Studies show the San Diego fence works!

Completing border wall is daunting task in Texas, where most land is privately owned

Published January 01, 2016Fox News Latino

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BROWNSVILLE, TEXAS (AP) – Close to the southern tip of Texas a border wall suddenly ends. Its final post sits in a dry cornfield half a mile from the nearest bend in the Rio Grande river, the actual border with Mexico.

It would be easy to walk around it. Tires left by the border patrol rest nearby. Agents drag them behind trucks to smooth the cracked earth and check for footprints.

Unlike other famous barriers in history such as the Berlin Wall or the Great Wall of China, the U.S. version is not much of a wall. What stands in Texas is fragmented series of fencing, composed of enormous steel bars embedded in concrete close together. The rust-colored thick bars that must reach a height of 18 feet loom over the landscape, forming teeth-like slats that split farmland, slice through backyards, and sever parks and nature preserves.

There are miles of gaps between segments and openings in the fence itself. As a result of the Secure Fence Act passed in 2006, the government built some 650 miles of wall along the 1,954-mile U.S.-Mexico boundary. While 1,254 miles of that border is in Texas, the state has only some 100 miles of wall.

Republican presidential candidates insist they'll finish it. But completing the Texas part of the wall would be a daunting task thanks to the border's sheer length, the fact that it sits in the center of the snaking Rio Grande, and because treaties with Mexico prevent either country from constructing within the river's flood plains.

And unlike in other southwestern states, most border land in Texas is privately owned.

Finishing the some 1,300 miles of border fencing would also be costly. According to a 2009 Government accountability report, pedestrian fencing, meant to keep out smugglers and migrants crossing on foot, has run anywhere from $400,000 to $15.1 million per mile, averaging $3.9 million.

More recent construction has been even more expensive, with segments constructed in 2008 costing $6.5 million per mile. If kept at this rate, the wall would cost nearly $10 billion to complete just for materials, and challenging geography could bring it much higher.

"With every twist and turn of the Rio Grande and every steep terrain in Arizona, it would cost easily that much," said Adam Isacson, a border expert for the Washington Office on Latin America.

Officials overseeing the wall's construction faced a legal and logistical nightmare from the start, according to emails obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and litigation by Denise Gilman, a law professor at the University of Texas. The hundreds of emails, which Gilman shared with The Associated Press, show that from the planning phase some 65 miles of the proposed route sat a half mile to a mile from the border, making it not a true border wall.

Officials struggled to find places where construction could start fast to meet Congress' deadline of building 255 miles by December 2008. They sought contingency fencing that did not require "significant real estate acquisitions" or cut through sensitive wilderness, the emails show. Wealthy landowners demanded more compensation or refused to allow construction.

Hundreds of property owners were sued just to build the existing chunks of wall. Some 400 relinquished properties ranging in size from a driveway to commercial lots and farms, costing the government at least $15 million, according to an AP review of land cases in 2012.

Among them was Eloisa Tamez, who refused to cede her three acres in San Benito, land that had been in her family for generations. A federal judge ruled in the government's favor, and Tamez was compensated $56,000, with which she funded a scholarship at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley where she works as a professor.

"It might be just a little piece of land," she said. "But to me it meant my life."

The Rio Grande Valley is home to 54 miles of wall, and the official name of the border barrier there is Pedestrian Fence 255. The area is the major crossing point for tens of thousands of families and unaccompanied children, many fleeing gang violence in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. The surge that began last year resumed in recent months, and Gov. Greg Abbott extended the Texas National Guard border patrol deployment in response to more than 10,000 unaccompanied children crossing into the U.S. in October and November.

Some residents have found themselves cut off by the wall.

Pamela Taylor, who lives near Brownsville, originally fought the wall's construction. Now her Texas home sits behind the wall on the side facing Mexico.

She still leaves coolers of water for thirsty migrants, though she wishes more of them would come to the United States legally, the way she emigrated from England.

The wall "doesn't do any good. It's a waste of money," she said. But she's gotten used to it.

Some locals say it's better than nothing.

Othal E. Brand Jr., the president of the Hidalgo County Water District 3, which supplies water to the McAllen area, pointed out where the fence separated a 20-acre reservoir from two pumping stations, which sit behind it along a bend in the Rio Grande. Brand said this land, adjacent to a wilderness reserve, was for years overrun by nighttime crossers and that smugglers threatened and even shot at his employees.

"The wall is only part of the solution," he said, "but it's an important part."

http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/pol...-is-privately/

"Existing law right now requires 700 miles of double-layered border fencing" on the Mexico border.
— Ted Cruz on Thursday,

December 17th, 2015 in a radio interview.


Cruz falsely claims U.S. law requires double fencing on border

By Sean Gorman on Tuesday, December 29th, 2015 at 12:00 a.m.

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A 2006 federal law required a double-layered fence along hundreds of miles of the U.S.-Mexico border. But that law has since undergone significant changes. (U.S Fish & Wildlife Service photo)

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, says President Barack Obama’s border policies aren’t just bad, they’re illegal.

"Existing law right now requires 700 miles of double-layered border fencing," Cruz, a presidential candidate, said during a recent radio interview on "The John Fredericks Show," broadcast in Portsmouth. "The Obama administration refuses to do that. They’ve built only 36 miles." (In CA.)

We wondered if the law requires that the U.S.-Mexico border have a 700-mile span of "double-layered fencing" in which two barriers are set up, one in front of the other.

Rick Tyler, a Cruz campaign spokesman, backed the senator’s statement by pointing us to the Secure Fence Act of 2006, which required that at least two layers of reinforced fencing be installed along five sections of the U.S.-Mexico border.

Those sections totaled about 850 miles, although the fenced area would be somewhat less, because other means could be used to secure the border in areas with steep terrain. In areas of steep terrain, "other means" could be used to secure the border, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service said in an April 2015 report.

The bottom line is, the law mandated a double-layered fence along a stretch of at least 700 miles, covering more than one-third of the roughly 1,900 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border.

But the law was amended in 2008 and loosened the fence requirements that Cruz continues to describe.

The current law, contained in the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2008, still mandates the construction of a fence covering "not less than 700 miles" of the border. But - key to this fact check - it erased the requirement that the fence be double-layered.

Instead, the law mandates that "reinforced fencing" be erected. That generally means a barrier that’s more durable and sturdy than a typical fence, but the law doesn’t specify the barrier’s height or that it be constructed from wire mesh or another material, according to the Congressional Research Service report.

The new law "now mandates only a single layer of reinforced fencing (while not precluding additional layers from being deployed, if deemed appropriate)," the report says.

So what has been built? The Department of Homeland Security says it has fencing on 650 miles, according to the research service. About 350 miles of that fencing is designed only to deter pedestrian crossings and contains only one barrier layer. Another 300 miles is covered by a "vehicle fence" - barriers designed to stop cars and trucks from crossing the border but not people traveling by foot.

Only 36 miles are covered by double-layered fencing, according to Homeland Security tallies.

"DHS (the Department of Homeland Security) believe they have all the fencing that they need and that any additional fencing would not contribute to border security," Marc Rosenblum, deputy director of the U.S. Immigration Program at the Migration Policy Institute, told us in an interview.

Others disagree, saying the barrier is not enough.

Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which urges tighter immigration policies, noted the vehicle fencing provides no deterrent for people on foot.

"Your grandma could hop them," Krikorian told us in an email.

Our ruling

Cruz says, "Existing law right now requires 700 miles of double-layered border fencing." He complains that Obama is ignoring the mandate.

Such a law was passed in 2006 but no longer is on the books. It was amended in 2008, before Obama took office, and the double-layered fencing requirement was removed. About 650 miles of fencing now stands, of which 36 miles is double-layered.

Cruz’s statement is long past its expiration date. We rate it False.

http://www.politifact.com/virginia/s...ouble-fencing/

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