Virtual Fence for Mexico Border Is Put Off but continue building the wall of shame.!!!!!

The US Customs and Border Protection is putting off plans for a virtual fence being built by Boeing Co. along the Mexico border and instead will focus on getting a physical fence in place as it tries to implement a border-security plan that is already late and over budget.

A virtual fence being built by Boeing along the Mexico border is being delayed by US Customs and Border Protection, which is set on getting a physical fence in place.

Both the virtual and the physical fences were the anchors of a 2005 Bush administration plan called the Secure Border Initiative. But the plan to secure the US-Mexico border has been plagued by cost overruns and delays and has come in for withering criticism from Congress.

Boeing has struggled to overcome technical problems on its virtual fence, part of a contract called SBInet that also includes physical fences. The virtual-fence system was first tested on a 28-mile stretch that was originally planned to be ready more than a year ago; it isn't operational.

The Boeing system was supposed to let Border Patrol agents handle more territory with the help of a series of towers capable of electronically monitoring rough stretches of the border.

According to Jayson Ahern, US Customs and Border Protection deputy commissioner, the highest priority is to put out a system of physical fences and barriers that will keep people and vehicles from illegally crossing the US-Mexico border.
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The Great Wall of Shame and Politics

There is a clear divide between political parties as well. "Fifty-eight percent of Democrats opposed a fence on the Mexican border, while 66 percent of Republicans favor one. Independents mildly favor a fence, by a 55 percent to 44 percent margin,
For now, presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain will be able to play some golf in the University of Texas at Brownsville and point around the north side to the visible result of the secure border policy. They’ll have to win over the critics and explain how a barrier of this magnitude works. History is littered with examples of failed attempts, like the Great Wall of China, the Berlin Wall and the Israeli-Palestine walls. That won’t be an easy ball to hit.

The great Wall of Shame.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I say that those who want this fence don't understand the border, don't understand the sense of community.
Along the border, a string of opposition groups ranging from municipal leaders to private landowners continues to argue against the proposed project.

The project will continue despite the controversies and most likely carry on to the next administration. Both major presidential candidates voted as Senators in favor of H.R. 6061 in 2006 and remain committed to the project. The fence will be an important issue for immigrant communities – especially Mexican and Hispanic groups – which see the construction of the barrier with skepticism.
No Mexican official has met with the International authorities or commented on the situation. It is expected to change when the International Boundary and Water Commission provides information regarding this matter and grave concern regarding the U.S. entry into Mexican soil by 20 meters, an act which is, according to the plaques on the obelisks, ‘a severe penalty’ of international law,”

The wall of Shame.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Is America's border fence working, or an utter waste? A lot of people Traveling to Texas to meet families on the U.S.-Mexico border who's fear losing their property, their safety, and their way of life.
"The Great Wall of China did not stop the Mongols, and the Berlin Wall didn't stop people escaping to freedom -- why do they think this will be any different?"

The Irrational symbolic politic of Paranoia: Steel Fence

Just west of El Paso, near where Spanish conquistador Juan de Onate crossed the Rio Grande from Mexico in 1598, construction crews have completed a steel fence authorities say is a new model for border security.

The five-meter (18-foot) tall fence has a mesh woven so tightly that feet and fingers cannot grab hold, but it still allows people to see through. Steel pylons are set close enough to stop a truck from bursting through, and two meters of reinforced concrete underground deters any tunneling.

The structure is designed to push would-be Undocumented immigrants and drug smugglers out into the desert where they are more easily caught, said Border Patrol Agent Martin Hernandez.

"Will it completely stop them from coming across? Of course not," Hernandez said. "Rest assured, there will eventually be holes in parts of the wall made by people trying to get in. But it buys us valuable time."

The US Department of Homeland Security is racing to meet a December 31 deadline to raise 670 miles of steel fences and vehicle barriers along the 3,200 kilometer (2,000 mile) long southern border. About half has been completed, including this six kilometer (four mile) segment at New Mexico's Santa Teresa Port of Entry.

But DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff faces a flurry of lawsuits by environmentalists and border communities that could stop construction cold.

To meet his deadline, Chertoff is using sweeping authority Congress granted in 2005 to waive 36 federal laws protecting water, air quality, endangered animals, and native American sites.

"The Great Wall of China did not stop the Mongols, and the Berlin Wall didn't stop people escaping to freedom -- why do they think this will be any different?" asked El Paso County Attorney Jose Rodriguez, the point man in one of the lawsuits.

The fence "is a political initiative meant to satisfy conservatives in Congress who have played to fears about all immigrants being terrorists, criminals, and living off the dole," he fumed.

The overwhelming majority of the half-million people believed to cross the border ilegally each year are peaceful, mostly Mexicans seeking low-wage jobs. About 12 percent of those caught in the El Paso sector in 2007, Hernandez said, have a criminal background or were previously deported from the United States.

The El Paso lawsuit argues that Chertoff's authority to waive federal law is unconstitutional. Dozens of groups have joined the suit, including the Tigua Indian tribe, which for centuries has held religious ceremonies on the banks of the Rio Grande, which marks the border between Texas and Mexico.

In El Paso, Chertoff's waiver overrides local rules on managing land use, air quality, and river water. "We have no idea to what extent we can enforce our own laws," said Rodriguez.

A separate lawsuit by Texas border mayors argues that Chertoff negotiated land prices in bad faith, failed to properly consult locals, and that landowners with connections to the US president -- a former Texas governor -- are getting special treatment.

Mexico is the second largest US trading partner after Canada, and border chambers of commerce involved in the lawsuit fear the immigration clampdown will hamper business.

Chertoff denies the charges, saying he is simply trying to complete what Congress ordered him to do. "The consequences of an open border are smuggling of drugs and human beings into this country," he said in mid-May.

-- Is the security clampdown stopping Undocumented border crossers? --

Many El Pasoans, including Fernando Garcia, head of the Border Network for Human Rights, note that the terrorists responsible for the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States did not cross the border with Mexico.

Yet the terrorist attacks "intensified and mixed anti-immigrant racist views with a law-enforcement-only approach towards immigration," he said.

The result was an increase in border security, including a flood of new resources that saw the Border Patrol double in size from 2001 to a planned 18,000 by the end of 2008.

In some areas Undocumented crossers are prosecuted as criminals, jailed briefly then deported. "That has a very significant deterrent impact," Chertoff said.

As a result, the Border Patrol reports a significant drop in the number of illegal border crossings this year compared to 2007, proof they say that increased enforcement works.

However those numbers represent only the number of people caught, immigration activists say.

"The main immigration flow has not stopped coming, it just shifted," said Josiah Heyman, a University of Texas at El Paso border expert.

Surveys in central Mexico, the source of most Undocumented immigration, show that show that most people are aware of the border crackdown yet are still willing to venture north, Heyman said.

According to Garcia, ten years ago some 100 people died annually crossing the border, most by dehydration in the desert or drowning as they tried to cross the Rio Grande.

The figure has been around 500 since the border crackdown intensified in 2005. "In other words, the same number or more people are crossing the border," he claims.

He proposes handing between 60,000 and 100,000 temporary work visas a year to fill the US demand for cheap labor, then give the estimated 12 million Undocumented immigrants already in the country a way to legalize their status.

"The wall is symptomatic of the fact that the US is not responsive to a rational immigration policy," Heyman said. "It is symbolic politics of paranoia."
Outsiders fail to realize that residents have close family, business and historic ties to Mexico, border residents say.

El Paso Mayor John Cook is fond of saying the border unites, not divides, his city with neighboring Ciudad Juarez, forming a border metropolis of some 2.5 million people.

Agent Hernandez exemplifies the border's complexities. He grew up in a heavily immigrant area of El Paso, is fluent in Spanish, and in his youth frequently visited Ciudad Juarez, where he has relatives.

Border Towns against The Fence, The Barrier, The Wall..








The U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency plans to build a nearly 700-mile fence along the southern border of the United States to curb Undocumented immigration. The fence, which could be completed by year's end, would split border towns and alter the relationships between U.S. border communities and their neighbors in Mexico. Eagle Pass, Texas, Mayor Chad Foster, a proponent of border control without physical barriers, has worked with other border communities on the issue as president of the Texas Border Coalition. American City & County talked with Foster about how a physical barrier could affect his community.

Q: What is Eagle Pass' relationship like with the neighboring Mexican community, Piedras Negras?

A: If there's a fire in Piedras Negras, the Eagle Pass Fire Department responds to it. If there's a fire in Eagle Pass, the Piedras Negras Fire Department responds to our needs. Mexico endured their first tornado in the history of the country on April 24, 2007. I called Piedras to see what their needs were. There was an older neighborhood [that] needed chainsaws and generators to [remove debris]. [The] tornado [came] from Piedras, jumped the river and hit Maverick County, Texas. The governor of Coahuila, Mexico, [went] to Piedras Negras with resources to help [the city] with their cleanup. [Then], he sent manpower and equipment and helped us with our cleanup and never asked for a dime. That's the way we work on the border. We're two countries that have historically worked as one community.

Q: How would the proposed border fence affect Eagle Pass and other border communities?

A: In the lower Rio Grande Valley, there's 69.9 miles of fencing to be done. With that fencing done, we're, in actuality, ceding 2,400 acres to Mexico [that] are going to be on the wrong side of the fence. We're going to see [our historic] Fort Duncan Park, the basis for the existence of Eagle Pass and Piedras Negras, fenced out. Our municipal golf course, which goes to the river's edge, and our city park will be on the wrong side of the fence.

Q: What alternatives do you propose?

A: We're not advocating doing anything less than securing our border. The Texas Border Coalition [advocates] security as our priority, but one size does not fit all. In Texas, we have a bamboo-like plant that will grow 30 feet high and in some areas of the river, [it] can be as deep as a half a mile from the river's bank. Any illegal activity that gets into that cane is out of sight. So, we're advocating the eradication of [the plant]. That facilitates line of sight for border patrol agents. [Along] the Texas border, we have camera towers along the banks of the river, and we have border patrol boats that are physically patrolling the river. We've seen a 70 percent decrease in apprehensions with no physical barriers. We feel that we can secure our Texas border without the need for any physical barriers.

Q: Why would the fence not be an effective way to secure the border?

A: Border Patrol has admitted [that] this fencing will only slow an illegal entry down three to four minutes. We just don't think that's good enough when the Congressional Research Service [studied] the expense of building 700 miles of fence. Maintaining it for 20 years will cost the taxpayers in excess of $49 billion. It makes no sense, especially when we have technology available to secure our border rather [than using] the antiquated solutions that haven't been used since the 16th century. No one knows our border better than those [of us who] live and raise our families

The Border: A wall or a Barrier?








In the current flap over building a wall between Mexico and the United States, it would be well to keep in mind Robert Frost’s injunction “something there is that doesn’t love a wall.” That “something” is that a wall is a barrier.

In the case of a “wall” between the United States and Mexico, a wall is a manifestation of conflict, just as the Berlin Wall was a manifestation of conflict. Essentially, conflict is an interactive process or behavior. That’s why the Berlin Wall escalated the Cold War. And why a wall be-tween the United States and Mexico will only escalate the enmity between the two countries.

Ronald Reagan’s plea to Gorbachev to “tear down this wall”—referring to the Berlin Wall—is not what brought down the wall. On the contrary, it was Mikhail Gorbachev’s response that brought down the wall. Instead of escalating the cycle of conflict, the Soviet leader chose to ignore the rhetoric of conflict and for whatever reasons take the first step in repairing U.S.—Soviet relations. There is no doubt that the U.S.—Soviet conflict had developed mutually destructive patterns of interactive behavior, the consequences of which heralded Armageddon.

When asked about the U.S.—Mexico wall in a 2006 visit to the United States, Mikhail Gorbachev responded that the United States seemed to be building the Great Wall of China between itself and Mexico (Midland Reporter-Telegram, 10/18/2006).

In the current American rhetoric about controlling the nation’s borders the question looms large: Why on the one hand did the U.S. want the Berlin Wall torn down and on the other hand does it want to build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico? There is no evading the possibility of racism and selective amnesia about the history of walls.

While the Berlin Wall did function as the perimeter of a "prison" state, its principal objective was to keep out extra-territorial influences that were anathema to the state dictum of the Soviet Union. A U.S. wall on its border with Mexico has the same objectives -- to keep out extra-territorial influences (the uninvited, the unwelcome, the Undesirable, and the unwanted) that are deemed anathema to the apodictic values of the United States

In Europe and well understood the nature of the Berlin Wall. But a wall between the United States and Mexico is not about penetrability. It’s about “good neighbors.” Why not a wall between the United States and Canada? Or a wall along the Florida coast to keep out Cubans? The inference is that Canadians and fleeing Cubans are good neighbors; Mexicans are not?.
Will a wall between the United States and Mexico help the United States in controlling its border with Mexico?.

In a piece on “Fences and Neighbors,” Rick Toone characterized the U.S.—Mexico wall as “a shining symbol of American economic and environmental arrogance.” And in a washington-post.com article (Sunday, May 27, 2007; B01), Luis Alberto Urrea quotes the Mexican consul in Tucson calling the U.S.—Mexico wall “the politics of stupidity.” In the National Geographic (May 2007), Charles Bowden concludes that “Fences may make good neighbors, but the barriers dividing U.S. and Mexico are proving much more complicated.

The Fear of Immigrants end up in a fence!!!!!!!!!!!





The common tactic use by Fascist to scare the public into surrendering their rights and liberties. Right Lou Dobbs?
Has anyone thought about the fact that yes, the fence is to keep mexicans out?


Bush’s Border Fence Destroys Wilderness.

The Bush administration is pushing ahead with what critics say is a final act of environmental vandalism in casting aside more than 30 laws and regulations to complete a 670-mile stretch of fence along the US-Mexico border by the end of this year.
The remaining 350-mile section of the planned anti-immigrant fence will run from the Colorado river to the remote Peloncillo mountains on the New Mexico border, slicing through the delicate fabric of an extensive network of national parks, monuments, wildlife refuges, forests and wilderness areas.

The controversial fence will divide Native American reserves as well as cutting through lands which have been handed down through families since Spanish colonial times.

Bulldozers and construction teams will soon move on to previously protected federal lands with some of the richest and most diverse natural habitats in the US. The resulting barrier, including banks of floodlights to light up the desert sky, will be impenetrable to many mammals but not necessarily to humans.

Illegal immigration is one of the hottest issues in the US presidential election and a sore point for the Republican candidate, John McCain. The Bush administration wants to show progress on an issue which the polls show is important to conservative voters. After being harshly criticised for being weak on immigration, Mr McCain recently changed tack to support the controversial fence.

The Bush administration says the barrier is needed to increase national security and the Homeland Security Secretary, Michael Chertoff, defended the decision to disregard environmental laws as enabling “important security projects to keep moving forward.” By mid-March, 309 miles of the fence was in place, with 361 miles left to complete, some 267 miles of which are federal lands. Mr Chertoff said that more than 100 meetings had been held with environmental groups and Native Americans to try to achieve compromise on the objections to the last, and most difficult, leg.

The sheer isolation of the Arizona border region has made its public lands a place of abundant wildlife and plants, many of which are found nowhere else in the US. The fence will cross vast desert valleys crowded with saguaro cactus and ancient ironwood trees, as well as forested mountain peaks and rivers bordered by graceful cottonwood forests.

An alliance of environmental organisations says it will endanger Sonoran pronghorns, burrowing owls and put two types of endangered cougar-like cats - the ocelot and the jaguarundi - at risk of extinction by preventing them from swimming the Rio Grande to mate.

For the last 10 years, the dramatic rise in immigration enforcement efforts in heavily populated areas such as San Diego and El Paso has driven immigrants, and drug traffickers to the remote borders of Arizona as they seek to enter the country.

The US Border Patrol has followed the immigrant trail, bringing havoc in its wake by using off-road vehicles and low-flying helicopters, which the Defender of Wildlife organisation says “has resulted in significant environmental degradation in some of the most pristine and valuable wildlife habitats in the nation”.

Even as the fence is being built, debate continues about whether it will do much to stall illegal immigration. Fernando Carrillo, a 32-year-old construction worker who was deported from Arizona six months ago, told the Associated Press it would not stop him from trying to get back to his wife and children in Phoenix. “They can do what they want, but we will keep trying,” he said beside the new barrier west of Nogales

SAID NO TO WALL, DI NO AL MURO.

The reaction was swift and angry. After Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced Tuesday that he would speed up construction of the wall along the U.S.-Mexican border by sidestepping three dozen federal environmental laws, House Homeland Security Committee chair Bennie Thompson denounced the move as "an extreme abuse of authority." Defenders of Wildlife president Rodger Schlickeisen lamented that "laws protecting wildlife, land, rivers, streams … (were) just a bother to the Bush administration." The Sierra Club's Carl Pope broadly suggested that rushing the fence to keep out illegal aliens might spell environmental disaster, even "the destruction of the borderlands region."
Public outrage was the easy part. Fighting back effectively will be more difficult. In the wake of Chertoff's announcement, which he hopes will lead to the erection of 370 miles of border fence before the end of George W. Bush's final year in office, environmental groups and their congressional allies are scrambling to fight the Homeland Security plan to speed the project along. They are hoping the Supreme Court will take up a case, filed last year, in which environmental groups challenged the constitutionality of the section of the 2005 immigration law that Chertoff used this week to waive compliance with "all legal requirements" that might slow border security improvements. At the same time, activists are hoping to persuade Congress to curb Chertoff—through political pressure, or by repealing the section of the law that established his authority to do so in the first place. "We expect Chertoff's decision will galvanize opposition to the wall and to the waiver," says Oliver Bernstein, a Sierra Club spokesman.
In announcing the waiver Chertoff said that Homeland Security would not compromise "its commitment to responsible environmental stewardship" while speeding up construction designed to slow the flow of illegal immigrants across the U.S.-Mexican border. But environmental leaders opposed to the wall don't believe him. They say that what's at stake are thousands of square miles of wildlife habitat from Texas to California. A border fence would cut off small American populations of threatened or endangered species like the jaguar, the ocelot and the jaguarundi, or weasel cat, which live mostly in Mexico but have tiny ranges in this country, says Brian Segee, staff attorney for the Defenders of Wildlife. The separation would cut off breeding between the two countries' populations and might drive some species to extinction in the United States. Even birds could be affected. In wetland areas, activists say, the building of border barriers would harm birds by silting up wetland oases or shifting the flow of seasonal rivers away from water-loving cottonwood and willow trees that provide crucial habitat areas to dozens of bird species.

Advocates of the fence praised Chertoff's move. Illegal immigration degrades the environment by trampling vegetation and littering border areas with "tons of trash," says Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). "Obviously we are concerned about endangered species," Mehlman adds. "The tradeoff here is that we have compelling interest both from a national security point of view and also to stop massive immigration to get that fence completed." CNN anchor and anti-illegal immigration crusader Lou Dobbs praised Chertoff on air for "doing the right thing" and helpfully declared that his program's "official position" was that "the Sierra Club can stick it."

The environmental groups' legal strategy is to challenge the constitutionality of the section of the 2005 Real ID law that let Chertoff sidestep the federal environmental and land management laws, which include the Clean Water Act, the National Park Service Organic Act and the Antiquities Act. In March lawyers for the Defenders of Wildlife and the Sierra Club submitted a petition for the Supreme Court to hear the case of a very limited waiver Chertoff signed last year to speed construction on a few miles of fence and road that cross the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area, south of Tucson, Ariz. The Real ID law deals mainly with improving the security of state driver's licenses to prevent counterfeiting. But one section grants amended federal legislation to hasten fence construction. The groups maintain in their suit that the waiver provision of Real ID violates the Constitution's separation-of-powers guarantees by effectively granting Homeland Security the power to circumvent environmental protections without sufficient judicial review.

The government rejects that view and points out that lower courts upheld the constitutionality of the broad waiver rules in two earlier cases. A federal district court judge in the San Pedro case rejected the theory last December, and the Supreme Court is weighing whether or not to hear the case. Segee, the Defenders of Wildlife attorney, says the legal team will file a notice with the high court about this week's waiver. "I think this week's decision by the secretary increases the chances of the court taking the case," says Segee, who adds that he hopes others will submit friend of the court briefs supporting his group's position

Other opponents are hoping to drum up opposition in Congress. The Sierra Club and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), an opponent of the border fence, will jointly send a letter to House and Senate members Friday denouncing Chertoff's move. "We think [Congress] can … make sure the secretary makes a good-faith effort to abide by the laws," says Brent A. Wilkes, LULAC's national executive director. "They are the ones who gave him the authority, and they can take it away whenever they want." Other groups plan to fan public anger as a way of convincing legislators to take notice. "There's a groundswell already happening," says Mike Daulton, director of conservation policy at the National Audubon Society. "We are hoping that this is such an extreme decision that there will be a public outcry against an agency that thinks it's above the law."

The decision has also angered some local groups opposed to the wall. In Texas, Steve Ahlenius, president and CEO of the McAllen Chamber of Commerce, complained that Chertoff's moves will allow 22 miles of wall-and-berm construction that "is going to destroy habitat and lose it forever." Jim Peugh, a local Audubon volunteer in San Diego, complained, "If they have to design a fence, you'd think they'd be committed to designing it right."
Some on Capitol Hill want to repeal the law that enabled Chertoff's broad decision. Arizona Rep. hopes to gain more congressional support for a bill he introduced last year that would, among other provisions, cut language that grants the homeland secretary the broad power. The Borderlands Conservation and Security Act would also force consultation with local land managers before construction could begin. In an interview Grijalva, chair of the Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands of the House Resources Committee, says he will expand the focus of his first hearing on the bill, later this month in Texas, to include Chertoff's decision

Still, opponents aren't bragging about their chances. Environmental groups failed in legal bids to stop two previous waivers that Chertoff granted, in Texas and Arizona. Environmentalists and opponents of the wall seem keenly aware that the politics of immigration and border security, especially after 9/11, trump environmental protection. Fewer than 25 members have stepped in to cosponsor Grijalva's bill since last summer. And the congressman knows that an election year may not be the best time to rally opposition to Chertoff—particularly in districts where illegal immigration is unpopular. "Honestly, I don't know if my colleagues have the political guts to challenge [the administration] on this issue," he says, criticizing fellow Democrats as well as Republicans. The question may hang fire until next year, when a new homeland security secretary takes over. By then many miles of the fence may be built. And it looks as though the next president will be one of three senators who voted to approve the border fence

Who's behind the virtual fence? Large corporations profiting from the border wall rather than fixed the dysfunctional and obsolete Immigration system.

U. of Texas Regents Suggest other Alternatives rather that the non sense Border Fence.

Hoping to head off a federal lawsuit, the regents of the University of Texas system on Wednesday called for negotiations to resolve a dispute concerning a proposed border fence that would cut through a campus shared by the University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College, the Austin American-Statesman reported today.
Officials of the partner institutions passed a resolution in December opposing the fence, and Juliet V. García, who is president of both institutions, so far has declined the government’s request for permission to conduct property surveys and environmental studies in preparation for the fence. “I feel the action poses serious harm to the university on many fronts,” she said in a statement on the institutions’ Web site.
The Austin newspaper reported earlier this week that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had recently declared its intention to sue to gain access to the campus, which is across the Rio Grande from Matamoros, Mexico.
As proposed, the fence would cut off 166 acres of the campus, including a golf course. The regents unanimously adopted a resolution on Wednesday that pledges support for homeland security but asks the government to explore other options. One alternative they put forward calls for reinforcing existing levees with a concrete wall that would improve flood control and border security at the same time. A neighboring county has advanced a similar proposal that the U.S. secretary of homeland security, Michael Chertoff, is expected to approve during a visit this week