Perry calls idea of U.S.-Mexico border wall ‘ridiculous’

MSNBC ^ | August 17, 2011 | Sarah Blackwill and Domenico Montanaro

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Rick Perry called the idea of a wall across the entire U.S.-Mexico border “ridiculous” today in a stop in New Hampshire.

“You got strategic fencing in some of the metropolitan areas – it’s very helpful,” the Texas governor said. “But the idea that you’re going to build a wall from Brownsville to El Paso is just -- it’s ridiculous on its face.”

That was in the context of Perry saying how he'd asked Washington for 1,000 National Guard troops and how current efforts at border security are ineffective.

Perry swatted at the Obama administration’s assertion that the “border is safer than it’s ever been.”

“Six week ago, the president went to El Paso and sai the border is safer than it’s ever been,” Perry began. “I have no idea, maybe he was talking about the Canadian border. I will assure you one thing, if I’m president of the United States, the border will be secure.”

[okie01]

The problem with a fence on the Texas-Mexico border is the river.

The California, Arizona and New Mexico borders are easy enough to fence. With few exceptions (Tijuana, Mexicali, Nogales) the border is simply a line in the Sonora Desert. There's literally nothing but cactus on either side of the border. A fence doesn't block access to anything of value -- for either people or animals.

The Texas-Mexico border, however, is different. It's defined not by a desert -- it's defined by a river. And, as any geographer can tell you, rivers make bad borders -- they're subject to heavy access and use on both sides.

Commercial traffic across the river in Texas is immense. El Paso counts on Juarez. Laredo counts on Nuevo Laredo. Del Rio counts on Ciudad Acuna, Brownsville counts on Matamoros, etc. There is no way to effectively stem the traffic between the city pairs.

But the river represents a bigger problem outside the cities. For 1248 miles, the river wanders through the desert -- and usually represents the only water source within 50 miles. Much of the borderland is rugged and uninhabited. But much of it is ranch land, as well, or heavily cultivated farm land in the valley.

How do you fence off a water resource under these circumstances? On both sides of the border, ranchers (and their livestock) and farmers (and their crops) depend on access to the river.

I'm all in favor of "securing the border". But, in Texas, a fence isn't necessarily the way to do it.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Thank you for taking the time to explain that.

Bump!

[okie01]

That's about 10 miles NW of Taos, NM. Doesn't have much to do with the Mexican border.

On the other hand, it looks pretty much like Mariscal Canyon in the Big Bend -- which is a little narrower and a little deeper.

I've canoed Mariscal, though, but I wouldn't attempt The Gorge.

[9YearLurker]

A GOP president who instead gives a ‘path to citizenship’ to the 30 million-plus illegals here will probably be the last GOP president we ever have.

[stephenjohnbanker]

Yep

[SUSSA]

Would you do away with them in Cuba and Korea too? Reagan expanded the mine fields in Korea allowing him to pull out thousands of troops.

I’ll bow to your first hand knowledge. I just wonder why we keep using them if they are so bad. It seems to me that if we use them to protect Guantanamo and Korea they would work to protect the homeland.

BTW Thank you for serving.

[Graneros]

Looks like a shovel ready job if there ever was one. We’re not talking about rocket science here. But just in case this is too technologically advanced for Perry to handle he could always hire all the recently laid off NASA Shuttle employees.

I mean we’re not talking about a giant suspension bridge between Marin County CA and San Francisco or perhaps some goofy idea like a dam across the Colorado River out in the mountainous terrain of the American Southwest. We know Americans are far too stupid for major accomplishments such as these. But if push comes to shove we’ll do what we seem to do best now a days: hire the Chinese. Seems I read somewhere they know how to build very large walls across very long distances.

[Will88]

Which State was the first to elect that ideological fire brand Ronald Reagan? What State does Free Republic come from?

Politically, California was a very different place when it elected Reagan than it is now. It also used to elect Republican senators and mayors of major cities.

Many people want to make some present day comparisons to Reagan's era and none of them really fit. Times have changed.

[maddog55]

Not viable because of all the PC BS this country has shoved down it’s throat.

It’s a perfect solution as far as I’m concerned... anyone coming across should be considered hostile and eliminated.

[shield]

I know there are a whole lot of Texans living in that area that are COMPLETELY against a fence. IF I remember correctly...they say it will ruin their area of Texas. I am going to go look and see if I can find an article on it...but it was quite revealing and surprising they felt that way.

[allsouthern]

Rick Perry has been aiding and increasing illegal immigration with laws like the Texas Dream and his sanctuary cities. If he was serious he would cut out the sanctuary cities and then start nailing those who hire them. You cut out the jobs, they will deport themselves.

[Art in Idaho]

. . put up the Aerostat system that Lockheed Martin builds. . This is smart....not a wall.

Sounds good. A combination of various types of "walls/fences/systems" sounds like the way to go. That's what I was mainly alluding too. Our best minds could certainly make this happen. It's the will thing again. To rephrase my comment: The majority of the American people want a border security system that works. That's all.

[A Texan]

Mexican drug traffickers/people smugglers are building 1/2 mile long underground tunnels and people think a 10ft tall fence is going to stop them?

Perry is right on this one, and I love your simple yet brilliant post/picture.

[allmendream]

No kidding. It is also a different place politically from when we recalled a Dem governor and replaced him with a Republican who we had high hopes for - only to have those hopes dashed with Rino business as usual out of Sac-town.

[shield]

Here's is one article. Border Fence Strands Some Texans in 'No Man's Land'

[Will88]

The Texas-Mexico border, however, is different. It's defined not by a desert -- it's defined by a river. And, as any geographer can tell you, rivers make bad borders -- they're subject to heavy access and use on both sides.

There is a big part of the problem right there, with you and all the apologists for Perry's de facto open borders policies. It is not the Texas-Mexico border, but the US-Mexico border. But that Texas-Mexico border state-of-mind is the reason GHWB and GWB and Juan McCain and many other border state politicians are such a liability, even a danger to the rest of the USA.

Border state politicians can't get beyond their narrow, pandering Tex-Mex view of the problem and they end up inflicting their narrow view and all the problems that accompany it on all the non-border states in the US.

And now you even advocate putting the priority of some rach above the prioty of the rest of the fifty states.

Can folks see why it is such a danger to the rest of the US to allow border state politicians and residents to determine immigration and border enforcement policies???

[Will88]

I think you actually replaced a recalled Dim governor with a celebrity who ran as a Republican. Many had high hopes for Whitman and Fiorina, but I don’t what it will take for a Republican to win again in a statewide race in California.

[Paul Ross]

Watch the video at Post 51 of illegals jumping the fence like jackrabbits and blow-torching through the Fence. It makes no sense at all. So, the U.S. Government builds the Fence for $3 Billion to keep trucks from driving though. How could you possibly counteract that? It's not Rocket Science.

And it's not rocket science to know that they never put up the fence they were supposed to...and were funded to do. Actually, Bush only spent $200 million, and built far, far less than he was supposed to...because he DIDN'T WANT to stop illegal alien incursions into the U.S. We all know that. He was a fake on national security.

Check out this story:

Where U.S.-Mexico border fence is tall, border crossings fall

In Yuma, Ariz., border patrol agents tout the success of a high triple-and double-layered wall. But such a fence is unlikely to stretch the entire border.

By Daniel B. Wood, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor / April 1, 2008

Yuma, Ariz. US border patrol agent Michael Bernacke guns his SUV down the wide desert-sand road that lines the US-Mexican border through urban San Luis, Ariz.

To his right stands a steel wall, 20 feet high and reinforced by cement-filled steel piping. To his left another tall fence of steel mesh. Ten yards beyond, a shorter cyclone fence is topped with jagged concertina wire. Visible to the north, through the gauze of fencing are the homes and businesses of this growing Southwest suburbia of 22,000 people.

"This wall works," says Mr. Bernacke. "A lot of people have the misconception that it is a waste of time and money, but the numbers of apprehensions show that it works."

The triple-and double-layered fence here in Yuma is the kind of barrier that US lawmakers – and most Americans – imagined when the Secure Fence Act was enacted in 2006.

The law instructed the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to secure about one-third of the 1,950-mile border between US and Mexico with 700 miles of double-layered fencing – and additionally through cameras, motion sensors, and other types of barriers – by the end of the year to stem illegal immigration.

Bankrolled by a separate $1.2 billion homeland security bill, the Secure Fence Act would, President Bush said in 2006, "make our borders more secure." By most recent estimates, nearly half a million unauthorized immigrants cross the border each year.

On the ground, though, things have turned out differently.

The DHS scaled back its ambitions early on, trimming its end-of-2008 target down to 300 miles of vehicle barrier and 370 miles of pedestrian barrier.

As of February, 302 miles of barrier have been constructed mostly on federal land in Arizona, New Mexico, and California, and slightly over half of this has been built under the new law.

Just $200 million will have been spent by June, according to Lloyd Easterling, the border patrol public information officer.

Only a fraction of the new barriers resemble anything like the images of formidable fencing – the Berlin Wall or the bleak monolith that divides Israel and the West Bank – envisioned by the initial proposal. Most of the new fencing is not a double wall, but a combination of regular vehicle blocks and pedestrian barriers that range from metal mesh and chain link to traditional picket fences.

And partly because of resistance from local landowners, the December deadline would be tough to meet, US government auditors have warned.

Yuma's formidable fence

In Yuma, at least, the fence seems to be preventing illegal border-crossings.

Bernacke, the patrol agent, says that since the triple fence was finished in October, there has been a 72 percent decline in illegal migrant apprehensions in the 120-mile swath of the US-Mexican border known as the Yuma sector. Eight hundred people used to be apprehended trying to cross the border here every day. Now, agents catch 50 people or fewer daily.

The 1.5-mile strip of triple fencing that cuts through suburban San Luis is the most impenetrable, says Bernacke.

That's because the three walls are separated here by a 75-yard "no man's land" – a flat, sandy corridor punctuated by pole-topped lighting, cameras, radio systems, and radar units, where unauthorized migrants can be chased down by border agents.

And BTW: The Fences were never to be totally independent in their stopping the incursions...there were primarily to HELP the patrols principally by helping detectability, and delaying the speed of crossings, and limiting the mobility and viabilities of the intruders. And the example herin obviously shows it works. Time to fully enforce the Law, that Bush and Obama are violating.

[Puckster]

I agree......I like the Aerostat system because it reaches south farther than anything giving time to act upon illegal insurgents.

I really don't have any problem with them coming here...let's just make it legal, eliminate the riffraff.

I'm back from Kandahar, Afghanistan, having finished a contract there and I will be going back onto the Aerostat system with LM.

It is a very capable system.

A system capable of forewarning means fewer prepositioned assets needed to respond to whatever situation arises.

Indeed, Perry is right, a wall is stupid.

They'd be able to respond in a timely manner when the damn Mexican army wonders across the border with sufficient resources to eventually discourage this crap.

[Puckster]

You post some really good links....thanks.