Posted on 11/08/2007 4:45:45 PM PST by SwinneySwitch
McALLEN — To reduce illegal immigration from Mexico, federal officials need to build more bridges across the border — not fences — said Tamaulipas Gov. Eugenio Hernandez on Wednesday.
“In Tamaulipas, we have many bridges with Texas and we are building more,” Hernandez said during an address to about 120 people during a Texas Border Coalition luncheon at the McAllen Convention Center.
“But just as important as these physical bridges are the economic, political and cultural bridges that we are given.”
Hernandez talked about how during the 1980s, Spain’s economy lagged behind other Western European countries and many people attempted to illegally emigrate elsewhere.
But rather than isolating Spain from the rest of Europe, Hernandez said other countries helped build Spain’s economy and the immigration problems subsided.
The United States ought to consider such a plan rather than building a border fence, Hernandez said.
“I know that many of the leaders here are looking for a solution and are working hard to change the political perception from building a wall to building more bridges,” he said.
Building a fence along the border would waste billions of dollars that could be better spent on improving border security, according to local leaders.
McAllen Mayor Richard Cortez favors improving border security, but he said greater scrutiny by homeland security officials at U.S. ports of entry has slowed trade and travel between the two countries.
“That ultimately hurts the American economy, not just the border economy,” he said.
Harlingen Mayor Chris Boswell said while Mexicans and Americans are “all in favor of border security,” building a barrier would not stop illegal entries into the United States.
“The wall is not going to do what they think it is going to do,” he said. “It’s not going to prevent illegal immigration.”
Jared Taylor covers Edinburg, the Delta region and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach him at (956) 683-4439.
Pingo!
If you want on, or off this S. Texas/Mexico ping list, please FReepMail me.
Mexico’s government should build some bridges. Any other bright ideas by Mexicans will get a speedy STFU from here.
Get your G D house in order down there and then perhaps we’ll listen to a word you have to say you explitives deleted.
It’s always “YOU” “YOU” “YOU” and NEVER “WE” “WE” “WE”.
Take some ownership. Get out of our face.
Pure bilge. How about bridges on the SOUTHERN border of Mexice?
I dunno about bridges, but tunnels are big business these days.
“Hernandez said other countries helped build Spain’s economy”
Angling for more welfare from the U.S, taxpayer. Scum.
Exactly!
Cute. We want those guys in our country.
Yes it will..........
See how effective words are. They say it won't we say it will........
Defense (DeFence) in depth with electronic and physical security features backed by UAV's and FLEA's on the border. Then with LEO's allowed to snag em as encountered inside the CONUS they get a free ride back to their own country with a lovely information brochure on how to "LEGALLY" become a US citizen......
Ya'll vatos come back now hear !.....:o)
“Hernandez talked about how during the 1980s, Spain’s economy lagged behind other Western European countries and many people attempted to illegally emigrate elsewhere.”
“But rather than isolating Spain from the rest of Europe, Hernandez said other countries helped build Spain’s economy and the immigration problems subsided.”
This guy cannot see the forest for the trees.
The difference is not here in American “anti-immigrant” attitudes. The difference is in the things Spain did to attract and accommodate investment in Spain from outside Spain.
We gave Mexico NAFTA, but Mexico remains on the bottom of the list of places that foreigners want to go build-up their companies in.
Too much of Mexico’s infrastructure remains inadequate; the economic benefits of its largest natural resource - oil - is squandered on government/union mandated padding of the national oil company’s payroll together with feeding a federal treasury known, worldwide, for lax tax collection (instead of enhancing that oil company, as an asset).
What keeps investors out of Mexico is its excessive business regulation (one of the least friendly places for small start-ups), corruption, and nationalist protectionism. Without the problems inherent in Mexico, many US manufacturers would have been expanding more in Mexico than China.
Mexico does not need bridges to us. It needs internal bridges among its own hardworking people, and providing those bridges will disrupt the political and economy classes in Mexico.
Fix your own damned corrupt country jerk@ff. We’ve been forced to be financially responsible for you freeloaders far too long.
Ouch! I just got whiplash from that mid-sentence change of directions. Very Clintonian.
They’re my next door neighbors. Since July. I’m not joking.
This is what most of our southern border looks like: there is no government-built fence at all. There is often just whatever is left over from some forgotten cattle fence, built privately to keep U.S. cattle from wandering freely into Mexico. For hundreds of miles there is not even a broken cattle fence, there is nothing at all.
For comparison, below the broken cattle fence photo is a sample of an inexpensive but highly effective double border fence system, with a plowed strip to reveal footprints. This type of system is very cheap and can be built with great speed.
Here is what some of San Diego County has: a wall made of rusty Viet Nam-era runway mats. The corrugations are even horizontal, (to make climbing easier?)
Here is what the border looks like where the runway mat wall exists. Mexico begins on the other side of the ineffective rusty wall, which actually helps the smugglers, by hiding their movements until the occasional USBP vehicle has driven out of sight.
This is how "the game" is played. Smugglers hide on the other side of the wall with their dope and/or their illegals, out of sight of the USBP. They wait for the highly visible white BP vehicle to drive over the distant hills. Lookouts with cell phones and walkie-talkies report on the current locations of the BP units. They know with certainty that "the coast is clear" for an hour or two, and the smugglers and illegals hop the fence and run into the scrub only 50 yards away. From there, they are out of sight, and they walk 1-2 miles to holding houses. Then they wait for nightfall, and are picked up and driven in vans to LA or San Diego.
Next, we see the Duncan Hunter 15' fence, which is already being built along a few "showplace" miles of San Diego, mainly near the ports of entry, where panderng politicians can conveniently show it off to gullible reporters. As you can see, the rusty runway wall is seen at the left side, Mexico begins on the other side. In areas with the 15 foot fence, dope smugglers and illegals will have to cross the open sand ("the government road" as it is called) before starting to try to get over the 15 foot fence.
This new fence is extremely tough, and resists cutting. Attacking the fence would have to be done right out in the open, in full view of cameras. This type of fence, on the U.S. side of the government road, will give the USBP a barrier to patrol, instead of forcing them to chase illegals around 100,000 square miles of wide-open frontier land, which is a fool's errand. Everywhere this modern multiple fence system has been built, crossings by illegals drop to almost nil.
This ain't rocket science, folks. We're not talking about something like the Hoover Dam project, (which we managed to build 70 years ago). The world's last superpower, which put a man on the moon 35 years ago, can build a couple thousand miles of simple and effective fencing.
This is how it's being built in San Diego county, along the last 14 miles out to the ocean. The total cost of the entire fence from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific would be about 5 billion dollars, or what we spend medicating, hospitalizing, educating, and incarcerating illegal aliens just about every month. In other words, the fence would pay for itself immediately.
Or, we can continue our current policy.
The bridges that Mexico needs all start south of the border.
Good fences make good neighbors !........:o)
The fool is a damn idiot, I thought people in Texas had better sense than to listen to someone ask for black mail, if you give us enough money we'll stop coming.
I didn’t know Talaulipas HAD a governor - I figured the drug smugglers ran it.
Learn something new every day, I guess!
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