Divided views as US fence goes up

BBC News ^ | 1/31/08 | Duncan Kennedy

[mdittmar]

Of all the issues in this year's US presidential election, immigration is the one that touches the rawest of Democratic and Republican nerves.

After last year's failure by President George W Bush to get his comprehensive immigration plan past Congress, it has become fertile and divisive ground for candidates in the race.

But there is one area of immigration policy that is proceeding, despite the political stalemate: the building of the border fence between the US and Mexico.

Hundreds of kilometres are under construction along the US's southern frontier.

Estimates for the cost of the project have ranged from $2bn to $10bn (£1bn to £5bn).

Military-tested

Flying by helicopter some 100m (330ft) above the fence, it can sometimes be hard to see.

In the section along Arizona's border with Mexico I went to examine, the barrier appears like a thin black line snaking along the desert floor below.

Once you fix your eyes on the line, it becomes clear this is one area where building is racing ahead.

Roughly a mile of fencing is being erected every month here.

Areas of once-untouched desert are now disappearing under a lengthening slice of man-made fencing.

After setting down, we were able to get up close to the men and machines making the new fence.

Coast to coast, from the Pacific to the Gulf of Mexico, some 300 miles (500km) of barrier are completed, with another 700 miles (1100km) set to go up by the end of this year.

The fence itself is an impressive, sun-blocking, engineering feat.

Agent Jose Gonzalez of the Arizona Border Patrol tells me each 4-metre-high (13ft) panel can withstand a car impact at 45mph (70 km/h).

"It's been tested using the military's armoured vehicles," he says. "We think it will withstand pretty much any migrant car or truck."

In other places, where the terrain is more suited, electronic sensors, not walls, are being installed.

But whatever "asset" is being constructed, to use Agent Gonzalez's term, it all raises the same question of whether it will work.

"It won't stop everyone," is his honest answer.

"But we believe most migrants will be deterred".

Agent Gonzalez later drives us parallel to this gigantic metallic barrier. You can see through its grey bars. Just across the ravine inside Mexico we spot a man.

When he sees the fence and us, he changes his mind about crossing and runs off.

He is not the only one deciding he needs a plan B. In some places where the wall has been completed, and where extra border patrols are in place, illegal crossings are down by as much as 60% compared with a year ago.

The days when Mexicans, Nicaraguans, Salvadorians and others could step over flimsy strips of barbed wire to begin a new life in the US are now numbered.

'Just for the US'

The fence is part of President Bush's attempts to convince Congress he is tough on immigration.

Congress gave him the go ahead for his fence but not his policy on dealing with the estimated 11 million undocumented migrants already in the US.

That unfinished business has turned into a key issue in this year's presidential race.

In some states, it is the social topic of the 2008 campaign.

We later cross into Mexico to find the fence is just as controversial, but for very different reasons. Here, it has been likened to the Berlin wall.

"What do you think of it?" I ask Marco, a Mexican, deported from America and now trying to get back into a country where hourly wages are up to 10 times those in Mexico.

"It's unfair" is his simple reply.

Marco stands dwarfed by the new border fence in front of him, but not, it seems, by the task ahead.

"Some will slip through," he says, "and I hope to be one of them."

We then climb inside one of the orange pick-up trucks used by a migrant help group, Grupo Beta.

The group, set up by the Mexican government, takes us along the fence on the Mexican side. We go past migrants straining to look up at the immense structure before them.

Enrique Enriquez from Grupo Beta tries to be diplomatic when I ask him what he thinks of the wall.

"It's fair for them, it's fair for the United States," he says.

"But maybe it's unjust this side. It's for the protection of the United States. It's just for them."

Opinion polls in the US suggest this belated attempt to physically halt unchecked immigration is popular.

Many millions of figurative horses may have bolted, but this barn door is now being very firmly shut.

Less clear is what to do with those migrants who have already made it through illegally. The outcome of this year's election may help decide that.

For now, the US is a country that is putting in place a border, but not yet a policy.

[Travis McGee]

"Border Reality 101"

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.

[B4Ranch]

Really I'd like to call the SeaBees in to come and build the darn fence.

"WE BUILD, WE FIGHT"
SEABEES CAN DO
WITH WILLING HEARTS AND SKILLFUL HANDS,
THE DIFFICULT WE DO AT ONCE,
THE IMPOSSIBLE TAKES A BIT LONGER

[Travis McGee]

Start 20 companies at once, working 100 miles apart, each company going in both directions. Finish in 6 months.

[Straight Vermonter]

There is a 500 mile long border fence in Kashmir between India and Pakistan as well.

[G8 Diplomat]

North Korea has one too. Everyone gets it but our Congress, apparently.

[B4Ranch]

Work 10 day shifts, the Team that stands in the most footage gets a three day weekend and you’ll build it in three months. SeaBees are competitive, especially against each other.