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WASHINGTON — Texas congressmen, citing skyrocketing costs to build a fence along the U.S.-Mexico border, said Thursday they would push the next presidential administration for more cost-effective measures to control drug smuggling and illegal immigration. U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, and Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Austin, made the comments after a Rio Grande flyover to view efforts on the ground by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. “Let's regroup and provide border security in a smart way and not just waste the taxpayers' dollars,” Cuellar said. McCaul called for more state and local funding to bolster law enforcement efforts, saying, “What spills...

Figures released today by the Texas Border Coalition, a group of south Texas officials who oppose the proposed construction of that border fence, indicate that the number of people crossing into Texas illegally has fallen by more than fifty percent in the past four years, 1200 WOAI news reports. The largest drop in illegal border crossings has been in the El Paso and Marfa Border Patrol sectors, where the number of people arrested for illegal entry has fallen by more than 70% since 2005.... Texas officials credit expanded Border Patrol surveillance, backed up by the Texas National Guard and Operation...

New barrier to limit families' socializing: It was like any seaside picnic, with family members sitting on folding chairs, colorful umbrellas and a cooler full of sodas. The only unusual thing was the steel mesh fence running through the middle of it. On a recent Sunday, the Sotomayor family rose early, packed a lunch and drove south to Border Field State Park, where the fence that separates the United States from Mexico meets the ocean.As many Mexican-American families have done for years, they were there to spend the day with relatives unable to legally cross north to hug them and...

WASHINGTON – Congress approved a shift of $400 million from technology accounts to construction of the U.S. border fence despite a Customs and Border Protection admission that it cannot be completed by year's end, officials said Monday. The House Appropriations Subcommittee for Homeland Security agreed to a CBP proposal to transfer funds from other accounts to build the remainder of the 670 miles of border fence. Eagle Pass Mayor Chad Foster, chairman of the Texas Border Coalition, voiced disappointment over Congress' decision to continue to fund “the border wall.” “It won't work. It is lethal to people and wildlife and...

Mexico City, MX – Mexican lawmakers today proposed a 700 mile border fence to keep Americans from illegally entering the country. Recent economic conditions in the US have sent tens of thousands of Americans over the border seeking employment. Home Depots in Guadalajara and Tijuana reported shiny, pale objects on the periphery of their parking lots - later determined to be illegal Caucasians looking for work. Mary Consuela, a futbol mom from a suburb of Cancun was quick to endorse the fence. “They come to work to support their families in America – I understand that,” said Consuela. “But they...

<p>TIJUANA, Mexico -- There is a moment each evening, as the sun melts into the Pacific, when Colonia Libertad is at peace....but it is only a moment. The floodlights click on, bathing the neighborhood in a blinding light. The helicopters return, clattering past. And the smugglers arrive with their ladders and blow torches and groups of people desperate to escape a fate similar to the one residents of Colonia Libertad long ago accepted.</p>

Completion of fence along U.S.—Mexico border hinges on Congress approving the transfer of $400 million in existing infrastructure and technology funding Washington, D.C. – U.S. Congressman Duncan Hunter (R-CA) today commended the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) proposal to reprogram available border infrastructure and technology funding for the completion of physical fencing on the U.S.-Mexico border. Congressman Hunter also received confirmation from DHS that such action, if approved by Congressional Appropriations Committees, will not impede the fence construction project at “Smugglers Gulch” in San Diego, California. I strongly support the proposal by DHS to take money from virtual fence and...

Gadget recently noticed some new brush growing at the border fence. Closer investigation, however revealed it had been placed there to disguise a recently dug hole under fence. Dan moved the brush away and filled in the hole.

The Bush administration needs an extra $400 million to complete its fence along the country's Southwestern border, and government investigators say that may not be enough to finish construction by the end of this year. To complete the 670-mile fence -- already half-built -- the administration has asked Congress to approve the use of $400 million set aside for other programs, said Jayson Ahern, the deputy commissioner of Customs and Border Protection. Higher costs of fuel, steel and labor have led to the shortfall, he said. Ahern is scheduled to testify on Capitol Hill today....the Government Accountability Office will tell...

Maribel Navarro remembers a time, not so long ago, when afternoons at La Perla restaurant in the remote border settlement of Sásabe, on the Arizona-Mexico border, meant crowded tables and queues stretching out of the door...Mexican and Central American migrants who descended on Sásabe en route to the US provided enough business not only for Ms Navarro but for the whole community. Some estimates suggest that more than 1,000 migrants...passed through Sásabe every day. This lunchtime, however, Ms Navarro is struggling to find things to do...“It’s dead here,” she says. “Sásabe is turning into a ghost town.” The sharp changes...

GRANJENO - Border residents are being asked to act as witnesses to any “abuses” perpetrated by the Department of Homeland Security or its agents during construction of the border wall. Documented evidence of “abuse” is being sought by the No Border Wall group in the hope that it can be used as testimony at congressional hearings held to review the border wall project... Although the No Border Wall group originated in the Rio Grande Valley, No Border Wall spokeswoman Stefanie Herweck said....."The feeling is that we have until now and January, when the new Congress meets and the new administration...

141, Campo, CA Smuggler's Gulch

The presumptive Democratic candidate aspires to end U.S. foreign policy “unilateralism:” Democrat Barack Obama represents a “new type of leader” who hopes to use multilateralism, dialogue and the cooperation on the international scene, his campaign advisors said today. “The new element that Obama brings in working with the rest of the world is that… he will listen and will work with our allies, and thus move away from the unilateralism” that has been the mark of the government of Republican President George W. Bush, declared Greg Craig, one of Obama’s main foreign policy advisers, at a press conference. Craig described...

Environmentalists say flooding caused by a new border security fence in southwestern Arizona shows the structure is being built too quickly and without regard for the environment. Critics say the design of the border fence caused debris and water backup during a July 12 storm that led to flooding at the port of entry at Lukeville and Sonoyta, Mexico, and at the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. "One of the reasons for it was the debris that accumulated on the fence itself," said Lee Baiza, superintendent of the monument, a 517-square-mile lush desert tract overseen by the National Park Service....

Environmentalists say flooding caused by a new border security fence in southwestern Arizona shows the structure is being built too quickly and without regard for the environment. Critics say the design of the border fence caused debris and water backup during a July 12 storm that led to flooding at the port of entry at Lukeville and Sonoyta, Mexico, and at the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. "One of the reasons for it was the debris that accumulated on the fence itself," said Lee Baiza, superintendent of the monument, a 517-square-mile lush desert tract overseen by the National Park Service....

<p>MISSION, TX -- The Bush administration's recently proposed changes to rules involving endangered species could lead to projects like the fence being built along the U.S.-Mexico border that could threaten endangered wildlife, the Sierra Club warned Friday.</p> <p>"We're talking about animals already pushed to the brink of extinction," Liz Walsh, chairwoman of the group's endangered species committee, said at a news conference near a border fence construction site.</p>

In a backroom deal just prior to the Christmas break, Congress passed the omnibus Appropriations bill which included the Hutchison Amendment that gutted the Secure Fence Act. Her amendment essentially guaranteed that the DHS didn't have to build the fence! After Grassfire broke the "Secure Fence Hoax," key members of Congress took action in an effort to undo what the Hutchison amendment did, by restoring deadlines and double fence mandate for the entire 854 miles of border. Two bills have been introduced which Grassfire is supporting. Each of these bills demands Congress make good on their original promise to build...

By Michelle Malkin  •  August 20, 2008 11:52 AM It’s your Fence In Name Only alert. Remember all that talk of how the Secure Fence Act allowed DHS to speed up construction with a special waiver process? Well, the waiver process — like the non-existence fence — is full of holes. And it’s another Bush administration agency that’s standing in the way: Work on “virtual fences” planned for Arizona’s stretch of the U.S.-Mexican border has been brought to a halt.The Interior Department has not granted the Homeland Security Department permission to use the land for constructing the surveillance towers that form...

The designation this summer of $465 million in U.S. aid to combat drug trafficking in Mexico and Central America — along with the valuable cross-border dialogue that helped bring about this Merida Initiative — is a step in the right direction....But given the urgency of the problems we face, this step is disappointingly small...The Merida Initiative is stingy by any standard but especially by U.S. standardsFighting drug traffickers is not only a Latin American responsibility, it is also an American responsibility...Like all developed nations, the U.S. must confront the fact that no country can be safe while poverty, illiteracy, violence,...

The sea crashes on to the rocky beach, with the marbled sand black and white, looking like paradise with the sound of norteño music lingering in the background, but this view is violently interrupted by a metallic wall, penetrating the sea, salted water responding to the aggression by corroding the metal sheets. Here, right under the light house, thousands of families have gathered for summer days, weekends and holidays, meeting to share, kiss, and hold hands, for over 30 years. Lone men coming from the US side to see their kids grow across the fence, while they cry in their...

<p>SAN DIEGO - Scrapers and bulldozers began filling a deep canyon Friday to make way for a border fence in the southwestern corner of the United States after 12 years of planning, environmental reviews and legal challenges.</p> <p>The 3 1/2-mile stretch extends from a state park on an oceanfront cliff through a canyon known as Smuggler's Gulch. The gorge was overrun by illegal immigrants until U.S. authorities launched a crackdown in the 1990s that pushed traffic to the remote mountains and deserts of California and Arizona.</p>

SAN YSIDRO – The shooting of a Mexican man by a U.S. Border Patrol agent during a rock-throwing incident west of the San Ysidro border crossing drew a rebuke yesterday from the Mexican Consulate in San Diego and a demand that U.S. authorities conduct a “thorough investigation.” “Any kind of shooting toward Mexican territory is rejected by the Mexican government,” Consul General Remedios Gómez Arnau said. “They should have waited for response of the Mexican authorities.” The Border Patrol agent shot at two people in Mexico on Tuesday night, wounding one, after a group suspected of trying to illegally enter...

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Congressman Duncan Hunter (R-CA) responded to reports that a Border Patrol agent was held at gunpoint by members of the Mexican military in Arizona by reaffirming the necessity for border fencing and other infrastructure. According to a State Department Spokesman, the encounter “stemmed from a momentary misunderstanding as to the exact location of the U.S.-Mexican border.” "I disagree with the State Department’s characterization of this incident," said Congressman Hunter. "The fact that members of the Mexican military are routinely operating in such close proximity to the border, with no identifiable purpose, raises serious questions about their...

President George W. Bush, in China attending the Olympic Games, responded promptly to Russia's invasion of Georgia with the caveat that "territorial integrity must be respected." We're still waiting to hear the Bush administration's response to this month's invasion of Arizona's territorial integrity by the Mexican military. More than 40 times this year, the Mexican military has crossed the U.S.-Mexico border. The Mexicans even held a U.S. border guard at gunpoint. How long are we going to put up with Mexican impudence and federal neglect of duty? One of the most emphatic duties set forth in the U.S. Constitution is...

While many view the contentious border fence as a government fiasco, an animal rights group sees a rare opportunity. The billboards, in English and Spanish, would offer the caution: "If the Border Patrol Doesn't Get You, the Chicken and Burgers Will — Go Vegan." "We think that Mexicans and other immigrants should be warned if they cross into the U.S. they are putting their health at risk by leaving behind a healthier, staple diet of corn tortillas, beans, rice, fruits and vegetables," said Lindsay Rajt, assistant manager of PETA's vegan campaigns. The Department of Homeland Security is working to meet...

IT IS hard not to like David Danelo, a marine turned journalist and author. In the three months he spends travelling the length of America’s southern border, from the Gulf of Mexico in the east to the shores of California in the west, he displays a pleasing concern for almost everyone except politicians and drug pushers. As a former military man, Mr Danelo understands the hard-pressed officers of the Border Patrol, but he sympathises also with ordinary Mexicans lured to America by the dream of prosperity. To him, illegal immigrants are often nothing more than brave pioneers in search of...

Just west of El Paso, near where Spanish conquistador Juan de Onate crossed the Rio Grande from Mexico in 1598, construction crews have completed a steel fence authorities say is a new model for border security. The five-meter (18-foot) tall fence has a mesh woven so tightly that feet and fingers cannot grab hold, but it still allows people to see through. Steel pylons are set close enough to stop a truck from bursting through, and two meters of reinforced concrete underground deters any tunneling. The structure is designed to push would-be illegal immigrants and drug smugglers out into the...

Crews could begin filling in Smuggler's Gulch as early as this week for the border-fence construction project that environmentalists had opposed for years. The gulch is a deep canyon west of the San Ysidro port of entry. Yesterday, Reps. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine, and Brian Bilbray, R-Carlsbad, held a news conference there to announce the expected start of the cut-and-fill phase. “This is the last hole in the border fence,” Hunter said. “It's important to get this done.” Earth-scraping equipment was scheduled to arrive yesterday, he said. A Border Patrol spokesman later confirmed that the contractor handling the fence project is...

University of Texas-Brownsville and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security reached an agreement in a Brownsville federal court Thursday that will end plans for the construction of a border fence that would have severed the university golf course from the rest of campus. District Judge Andrew Hanen ordered the two sides to reappear in court on Tuesday with a written agreement to the dispute. As part of the agreement, the university will enhance an existing fence on the campus.... UT-Brownsville President Juliet Garcia said at a press conference following the hearing that the UT System has volunteered to pay the...

Supreme Court allows construction to proceedThe U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hear a case that challenged the Homeland Security Department's right to waive environmental laws and litigation to build a fence along the U.S.-Mexico border. The decision, made without comment, seemingly removes a potential hurdle to construction of a $48.6 million fencing project across a canyon known as Smuggler's Gulch, west of the San Ysidro port of entry. “It's over. They're going to build a wall,” said attorney Cory Briggs, who in 2004 filed suit to stop the project on behalf of the Sierra Club, San Diego Audubon Society,...

Mexican officials say a concrete barrier constructed by the U.S. Border Patrol in a storm-water tunnel beneath Nogales appears to be on Mexican soil and was the main cause of serious flooding July 12 in Nogales, Sonora. The flooding caused about $8 million in damage in Nogales, Sonora, the officials say. The 5-foot-high wall on the floor of the tunnel in front of a gate was put in without notifying the International Boundary and Water Commission, said Sally Spener, spokeswoman for the U.S. section of the commission. The commission requests that any agency doing work on the border that could...

BROWNSVILLE — The border barrier that soon will be built in the Rio Grande Valley hardly fits the Berlin Wall image conjured by its opponents. Rather, it’s a patchwork of permeable structures riddled with apertures for animals and people, with lots of gates and lots of keys. The Homeland Security Department’s Environmental Stewardship Plan for the Valley shows the agency has settled on locations for 21segments totaling about 70 miles, scattered from Brownsville to Roma. Seven segments will be 18-foot-tall cuts into existing river levees, reinforced with concrete. Three segments will be movable in case of hurricane-induced flooding. And one...

Washington -- Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff on Monday blamed tightened security on the U.S.-Mexico border for increased violence there, and he said the border probably will not be fully secured until 2011, two years after President Bush leaves office. "(Increased violence) is what typically happens when you start to enforce and make it harder to fight over the shrinking pie, so to speak, and who gets the best opportunity to exploit the additional space that's left," Chertoff said at a news conference at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection headquarters in Washington, D.C. on Monday. "That's a good...

Republican presidential candidate John McCain defended his stance on comprehensive immigration reform Tuesday and said that, if elected to the White House in November, he will make the U.S. borders secure within a short period of time. Speaking on CBS’ “Early Show,” McCain said Americans want the confidence that its borders be secured first before supporting a humane and compassionate approach to temporary worker programs and comprehensive immigration reform. “We are moving forward right now with securing our borders,” McCain said. When asked if the daunting task could be accomplished within a two-year period, McCain assured, “It will be secure...

“All the illegal border crossings are down. It looks like the border patrol is doing their job. There’s really no need for a wall like that,” said Mark Abeyta from east El Paso. The El Paso sector has reported that they have apprehended 25,500 illegal border crossers during the first nine months of this fiscal year. This is the lowest since 2000, and it was made possible because of more barriers, increased agents and the zero-tolerance policies. Currently the Department of Homeland Security has completed around 300 miles of pedestrian and vehicle fencing and they expect to have a total...

Open-border advocates operating under the guise of environmentalism are prepared to push for legislation that could result in an accelerated flow of illegal immigration, drug smuggling, and human trafficking from Mexico into Arizona, according to law enforcement experts familiar with the terrain. The two bills, sponsored by Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), would restrict federal and state law enforcement officials from patrolling an already porous border area that extends from Sonora, Mexico into Santa Cruz County, Ariz., critics charge. However, some members of Congress and environmental activists maintain the legislation would provide for greater flexibility in enforcing the border while safeguarding...

EDINBURG -- Hundreds of people chanting "No border wall" marched to the Hidalgo County Courthouse on Saturday evening seeking to persuade local politicians to abandon their support for the planned barrier. Protesters specifically targeted Hidalgo County Judge J.D. Salinas and other county officials for linking the building of the wall to the repair of the county's deteriorating levee system. Salinas has consistently said he opposes the border wall. But when it began to seem the barrier's construction was inevitable, he and other officials started lobbying the federal government to combine the project with levee repairs to better leverage federal money...

Just months from now, either John McCain or Barack Obama will be our President. Neither of these men are strong on stopping the flow of illegal aliens, so this truly is our best--and possibly last chance to get a REAL border fence built.

On Monday, the Supreme Court refused to take up the appeal lodged by environmental groups that focused on a two-mile stretch of border fence in the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area near Naco, Ariz. The fence, which has been built since the petition was filed, is a vital part of the Bush administration’s drive to secure the border between the United States and Mexico. The Supreme Court’s decision is a welcome and needed victory in the war against illegal immigration and efforts to preserve the unique character that is America. The environmentalists based part of their challenge on claims...

The Supreme Court’s decision to allow the Bush Administration to proceed with a 670-mile fence along our Southwestern border is a welcome step that should have been taken years ago. The environmentalists and other left-wingers who opposed the fence were more concerned about interrupting the mating habits of two types of wildcats rather than protecting the nature and character (not to mention laws) of their own country. This debate has never been about...the environment. It has been about importing votes. Liberal Democrats have not been able to win consistently with native-born Americans and legal immigrants and so are importing votes...

(CNSNews.com) - An appeal by environmental groups to stop the federal government from waiving regulations during construction of a fence along the U.S.-Mexican border was turned down by the Supreme Court on Monday. In its decision, the high court rejected a plea from Defenders of Wildlife and the Sierra Club to challenge a provision of a 2005 law that gives the U.S. Department of Homeland Security the authority to bypass environmental and other laws obstructing completion of the border fence. The controversy began after Michael Chertoff, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, invoked the REAL ID Act while issuing...

It's another case of liberals who cannot get want they want via the legislative process trying to get judges to write it for them from the bench. To show you how out-there the enviro-lefties are on this, Chertoff used waivers authorized by Congress. You don't have to like them, but neither did the members of Congress who voted "no" on the legislation. BUT THEY LOST. You don't get to rewrite the damn law through the judiciary. People elected by Americans in the democratic process passed that legislation as the law of the land. You don't like it? Vote for some...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Supreme Court rejected on Monday a legal challenge by two environmental groups to the U.S. Homeland Security secretary's decision to waive 19 federal laws so a fence could be built on the Arizona-Mexico border. The high court refused to hear an appeal by Defenders of Wildlife and the Sierra Club challenging a 2005 law that Secretary Michael Chertoff invoked on the grounds that it violated the constitutional separation of powers principles. The Republican-led Congress in 2005 gave Chertoff the power to waive environmental and other laws to build fences and other border barriers in an effort...

After a year of border fence protests in Brownsville, a meeting Saturday at a home that will soon be bisected by the barrier might be among the last opposition efforts before construction starts. Approximately 15 people gathered in the Pamela Taylor's front yard in rural Southmost, including several area residents who spoke publicly for the first time about the fence and its impact on their properties. "It's unfortunate that we even have to have a gathering like this," Diana Lucio said. "Because we're listening to each other, but I don't know if the government is listening to its own citizens."...

FoxNewsChannel Megyn Kelly just now (9:15am CST) reported as breaking news that the Supreme Court will not hear the appeal from the Texas group who sued to stop the DHS from building the border fence......

More than two years after a precedent-setting move by the federal government cleared a path around environmental laws and legal challenges, the construction of a stretch of border fence across a deep canyon known as Smuggler's Gulch is set to begin next month. Proposed additional fencing The project will require cutting earth from surrounding hills and filling in the canyon with more than 2 million cubic yards of dirt, an operation so large that critics fear disastrous environmental consequences.

When the border fence is constructed along the Rio Grande, Fermin Leal will watch as the barrier slices through the backyards of his neighbors, bypassing his 500-acre farm in San Pedro. The fence's trajectory, incontiguous and largely unexplained, has left many border residents suspicious of the federal government's plans. "I'm still not sure how my land is different than theirs," Leal said. "They still haven't given us any answers." The fence will run nearly unabated through Brownsville before stopping at River Bend Resort and golf course. It will break again for nearly seven miles in San Pedro, where the federal...

(CNSNews.com) - Members of Congress are split on whether the National Guard should end its deployment along the U.S.-Mexico border in July, as planned. On Monday, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff predicted the border would not be secured until 2011. (See earlier story)The Guard built 38.1 miles of new fencing, 18.5 miles of new roads, 94.5 miles of vehicle barriers and repaired 717 miles of road. The final withdrawal for the National Guard working in Operation Jump Start is planned for July 15. The National Guard's Noller said that Operation Jump Start is winding down because of a presidential directive....

The open borders of the United States amount to a national security exposure. This is a fact that cannot be debated. One has only to look at the number of foreign nationals attempting to illegally enter the U.S. through Mexico over the last several years. Since 2005, the Department of Homeland Security reports that more than 331,000 people from countries other than Mexico have been apprehended trying to cross the Southern land border. These individuals came from virtually every country in the world, including some with whom we have an adversarial relationship, such as Communist China, Iran and North Korea....