Posted on 06/03/2007 8:39:31 AM PDT by Baladas
McALLEN - The chief of the U.S. Border Patrol told angry mayors, businessmen and environmentalists Friday the 700-mile border fence was law, and if his agency and local officials reach an impasse on where the fence should go, "then it's up to someone to make a decision."
Chief David Aguilar's address to the Texas Border Coalition - which was hastily arranged late Thursday after numerous cancellations by Homeland Security officials - was sprinkled with conciliatory "ifs" and "mays" about the location of the fence. But Aguilar made clear that the federal government would have the final say.
"The mission of securing this country is mission one," he said.
When David Guerra, an executive with a bank that does a lot of business with Mexicans, asked what recourse local leaders would have if the government went against their concerns, Aguilar said, "I think as a banker you know that sometimes things come to an impasse - and then it's up to someone to make a decision."
Local officials have been fuming over what they consider the secrecy concerning a fence they say will cut farmers off from water, harm wildlife, ruin recreational areas and send a hostile message to Mexico, Texas' biggest trading partner.
Within months of getting Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff's assurances that decisions on the fence's location would not be made without their input, coalition members intercepted a confidential U.S. Customs and Border Protection memo that included a map of the fence.
Customs and Border Protection has since said things were badly handled and that the map is preliminary.
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, a Texas Republican who voted for the fence, got an amendment passed in the pending Senate immigration bill that would require Homeland Security to take locals' concerns into consideration when siting the fence.
But local leaders told Aguilar on Friday that poor communication persists, with all their information so far coming from intercepted memos, including a request for proposals for the fence contract.
"What is your plan in Texas? Where is the fence going to be built," coalition leader Mike Allen said.
"I can't tell you today," Aguilar said. "If I told you where the fence was going, that would mean we'd never partnered with you."
He said there were "no confidential memos."
But John McClung, president of the Texas Produce Association who attended a separate fence meeting Friday between landowners and the Border Patrol, said agents rolled out maps of private property marked with lines showing exactly where the fence was being considered. The lines were drawn on the levees, which can be as much as 1 1/2 miles inland from the Rio Grande.
"When you listen to the chief of the Border Patrol say this morning that this all is subject to consultation with localities and then you go to a site meeting and you see big rollout maps with lines drawn on it, you begin to wonder what their definition of consultation is," he said.
Allen, former president of the McAllen Economic Development Corp., said he was insulted to learn that the Border Patrol was not publicizing the landowners' meetings.
"We'd like to know what you're negotiating," he said. "Let us know where these meetings are. We'd like to go to them," he said.
Is there a map of where it will go?
Any of these local officials want to complain can request that the fence go on their north side.
LOLOL. That would be poetic justice.
Armed guards patrolling it?
A local government can use “eminent domain” to rip homes down to get a high-tax paying mall built, but the Federal Government is not able to use that power to get a security fence for America built?
Something wrong here...
Why not JUST PUT THE F*ING FENCE ON THE F*ING BORDER, and tell these yahoos to STFU!
There. I feel better now.
Illegals will stop sneaking in when there are no jobs to be had or welfare benefits to receive. Nail the employers who hire them with draconian fines and prison sentences. It is really that simple! Illegals come here because people hire them and people hire them because they have no fear of any prosecution for doing so!
Guerra is president of International Bank of Commerce. He is a native of South Texas and is married to Edna Rodriguez Guerra.
DUH, the levee is the primary patrol road that parallels the river. If you don’t put the fence near the PATROL ROAD you will not see the border bunnies trying to hop over the fence!
Also, this strikes me as being a matter of National Security and they are damn lucky to see any maps at all. Since the flood plane (between the river and the levee) and the levee are NOT part of the land belonging to the landowners, it belongs to the International Boundary and Water Commission, they do not have to tell them squat! They could just put the fence anywhere they damn well please.
And it would make a great tourist attraction.
These people should quit worrying. Nobody’s going to build much of a fence anytime soon.
From all I have been reading... this 700 miles of fence has been whittled to less than 200 miles. And with the Dems in control of Congress and our ‘mulit-nationalist’ President pushing for and American EU, what left of fence building will become a pile of sticks. It’s all been trumped by ‘comprehensive immigration reform’ doncha know.
While most of the landowners have no objection to virtual fencing, physical fencing is different.
If and when the feds have to resort to eminent domain, the fence price starts rising even more.
We should just buy the Great Wall of China from the Chinese and have it shipped over stone by stone, after all everything else is coming from China, call it an advertising icon.
Probably true. Not much hope of anything getting started till January 21st, `08
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