Posted on 12/28/2004 8:28:00 PM PST by JackelopeBreeder
DOUGLAS - The U.S. Border Patrol wants to construct up to 18 miles of new secondary fencing, with most of it being placed about 60 feet north of the existing border wall here and at Naco.
The secondary fencing is included in a wish list of improvements and enhancements the Border Patrol is proposing in the Revised Draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement for its Tucson and Yuma sectors.
The report, initially released in October, is now under review.
The additional fencing is just "another enforcement tool that will allow the Border Patrol to patrol both sides of the fence. It will in effect decrease, if not stop, illegal crossing in the areas where it is used. And it will require less manpower to patrol those areas, said Andrea Zortman, a spokeswoman for the agency in Tucson.
The secondary wall also will increase deterrence in the urban areas of Naco and Douglas by allowing agents to patrol the corridor formed between the existing fencing and a second 12-foot fence, increasing the certainty of capturing illegal crossers, she said.
Exactly how much secondary fencing will be used, where it will be located and what type of construction materials will be used are not detailed in the draft of the environmental impact statement.
The request for secondary fencing initially was made in 2001, Zortman said, but things have changed since then. For example, additional manpower, miles of primary fencing and new surveillance equipment all have been installed in the area and have been effective in curbing illegal entries in the urban areas. And for the moment, the Border Patrol's priority is to install still more primary fencing, more lighting, sensors and cameras.
"It's still out there, it's still being studied," Zortman said of the secondary wall plan, "but it's definitely not on the front burner."
For residents living along the border in Douglas and Agua Prieta, Mexico, the debate over the need for additional border fencing is academic. Many said they favor anything that improves security in their neighborhood, whether it's more agents, additional lighting or a secondary border fence.
Things have improved along Agua Prieta's Calle Internacional in the eight years since the Border Patrol replaced the porous chain-link fence with a 12-foot barrier of steel poles, said Enriqueta Martinez, 69, who has lived a stone's throw away from the border for more than 20 years.
The constant traffic of migrants and smugglers has slowed. But at night, Martinez says, she still has to cope with people climbing over the fencing around her yard and up onto her roof where they hide behind the cooler to act as lookouts for the smugglers who continue to work her neighborhood.
"The other day I heard something and came out to see what was happening. I saw a man up on the roof. He told me, 'Don't be scared,' but how can you not be scared, when people are climbing onto your house?" she asked.
Down the street, Maria Elena Olivares, 41, a 25-year resident of Calle Internacional says the existing 12-foot barrier has had little impact on the flow of people through the neighborhood.
"It's the same, people still keep jumping over," she said. "That fence hasn't held back anything. I've watched people cut holes in it and even pull it down in sections.
"I don't think more fencing will work any better, it's just another fence to jump."
Still, she favors any effort to hold back the illegal activity that sometimes spills over from the street into her yard.
It's the same across the border for Fausto Valenzuela and his neighbors living along International Avenue in Douglas.
Eight years ago, there were so many people crossing the border and running through his neighborhood and yard that he'd come to regard home repairs or improvements as pointless.
Valenzuela, 56, who has lived next to the border for 37 years, says he spent much of his time trying to keep up with the damage to his chain-link fence caused as people jumped onto it and then over an adobe wall into his back yard in an effort to elude the Border Patrol.
"Before they put in that fence you couldn't fix anything because they'd break it, and you couldn't leave anything out because they'd take it," said Valenzuela, referring to illegal border crossers. "Those people did a lot of damage," he added.
He supports the construction of a secondary fence in front of his home and would like to see more patrols and more lighting in the area, too.
"It's not as bad now, but people still cross here. It would be good if they could stop it," he said.
Not everyone living in the area is eager to see the additional barrier, saying it will do nothing more than push the smuggling of illegal border crossers into increasingly remote areas beyond the fence where the risk of injury or death is greater, says longtime Douglas Mayor Ray Borane, who is among critics of the plan.
"It's ridiculous to spend more money on a second fence," he said. "The first one didn't work and now they want to put up a secondary fence like they use around prisons. It's not going to solve anything, it's just more eyewash and more money from the taxpayer."
Borane says he isn't surprised that the Douglas residents living nearest the border support the fence and additional enforcement because they have been most affected.
The fence addresses the symptoms and not the cause of the problem, he said.
"They say, 'It keeps traffic out of my yard or my neighborhood,' but then it's another person's back yard," Borane said. "And in the case of Douglas, that means farther out into the countryside."
It would be like the New Deal WPA all over again... the only difference being that the economy is doing great this time around (despite what liberals and the MSM tell us).
They can use the "cheap labor" from illegals who are apprehended and their 18 yr old plus kids seeking "instate tuitions" for schools to erect the fence. If we're having to pay for their ride, they may as well be forced to push the cart a block or so.
Two fences are great - as long as we have ample guard dogs contained between them. The Humane Societies and dog pounds can provide a free source for those as well, and military and police dog trainers can "practice" on them as they turn them into guard material.
Anything we can spend on a fence would be cheaper than what illegals are costing us today.
Wellll---WHAT did it say ????
I'm not sure if you mean mine or Joe H. All I told one of the kook-aid drinkers was to stop exaggerating about our solutions to illegal immigration (a wall 200 feet high and deep). I didn't think it warranted being pulled.
As far as what Joe said "dumba$$s %@##*^% @5##*!# #@^& !"
We could put a stop to illegal border crossing if we really wanted.
That picture is perfect!
On another thread I said that Lou Dobbs had gotten an emmy for his Broken Border series, I was incorrect, it was the "Exporting America" series that got the Emmy, the Broken Borders series is still in progress.
Here is a portion of last night's transcript from the Lou Dobbs show.
The guest is Michael Cutler is a retired 30-year veteran with the Immigration and National Service.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0412/28/ldt.01.html
Well, my next guest is concerned about a guest worker program that would legalize millions of illegal immigrants working in the country. He says the current proposals are not practical and pose a security risk. Michael Cutler is a retired 30-year veteran with the Immigration and National Service. He spent most of his career as a criminal investigator and intelligence specialist. And thanks very much for being with us, Michael.
MICHAEL CUTLER, CENTER FOR IMMIGRATION STUDIES: Thank you, once again, for having me.
PILGRIM: Why is this proposal not practical? Many think it is practical, get everyone registered, know who's here. It seems very practical.
CUTLER: You won't know who's here because of the crush of humanity showing up at immigration we're going to wind up having to process millions of applications and basically the people at that desk are going to have to take the person's words for who they claim to be. My concern is they are going to wind up giving false names and possibly even circumvent no-fly lists and watch lists at borders so they can enter the United States even though if their real identities were known, they'd be barred from entry and be barred from taking airplane flights.
PILGRIM: So what's your suggestion? We shouldn't register them at all, just let them stay, or register them back in their own countries? What's a more practical solution to this?
CUTLER: In a matter of speaking, we should register them back in their own countries. And this would discourage illegal immigration. If ultimately decide we need guest workers, and I don't know that we do, then we should have them file the applications from back home where we could more properly screen them and discourage people from running the border in the hopes that if they get here, they'll be able to stay.
The other problem we have is right now we're not able to prevent employers from hiring illegal aliens because you've only got 2,000 agents to lend integrity to this process. How do we plan to lend integrity to a guest worker program where these folks are supposed to leave after three years? We don't have the manpower to go out and attempt to make them leave. And we won't even know for certain that they're showing up on the jobs that they claim they're coming to go to work at.
PILGRIM: Michael, we don't have the manpower to actually supervise what's going on now. And you've been in this so long, for so many years. Do you have a solution that you can come up with?
CUTLER: Well, I think, again, that if we do a guest worker program, we need to have these folks apply from their home countries. You know, when the president gave a speech back in January, he talked about a guest worker program, and that translated the next day, according to the border patrol, in a surge of illegal aliens running the border. So the reality is all this does is to encourage more illegal immigration.
And the bureau that's charged with adjudicating these applications have massive problems right now. Mr. Aguirre, who runs the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services, that's an arm of the Homeland Security Department, has said that each day, his people have to adjudicate 30,000 applications and issue 20,000 green cards. And right now they have a backlog of over 4 million applications. How do they plan to deal with this tidal wave of applications that are sure to hit the immigration offices around the country?
PILGRIM: Here's what President Bush said recently. We want our border patrol agents chasing crooks and thieves and terrorists not good-hearted people coming here to work. He seems to say, we should focus on people who are trying to come into this country illegally who are terrorists. Do you not think that's a good approach?
CUTLER: I think in principle, it's a great idea. But the problem is, what does a terrorist or bad guy look like? You know, I often like to ask people, what do you think a terrorist does two days before an attack? More than likely he goes to the job he's been holding down for the past five years or attending the school that he's been going to for the past three or four years in an effort to hide in plain sight. We don't know what someone's intentions are when they show up claiming that they're here looking for work.
You know, I wish we had a crystal ball or some kind of a machine that would enable us to see into somebody's heart. And it's all well and good to talk about wanting good-hearted people. But making it reality is something entirely different, then I would challenge anyone that thinks we can do that to show me by what process we can know what somebody intends to do.
PILGRIM: With all your years of experience, we certainly take what you say to heart. Thanks for joining us this evening, Michael Cutler.
Make it a 30,000 volt fence.
Your welcome. I found it quite entertaining, too. Some of the OBL have no sense of humor.
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