BajaNomad

Border security or boondoggle?

BajaNews - 2-27-2006 at 11:52 PM

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/02/...

A plan for 700 miles of Mexican border wall heads for Senate -- its future is not assured

Tyche Hendricks
February 26, 2006

A proposal to build a double set of steel walls with floodlights, surveillance cameras and motion detectors along one-third of the U.S.-Mexican border heads to the Senate next month after winning overwhelming support in the House.

The wall would be intended to prevent illegal immigrants and potential terrorists from hiking across the southern border into the United States. It would run along five segments of the 1,952-mile border that now experience the most illegal crossings.

The plan already has roiled diplomatic relations with Mexico. Leaders in American border communities are saying it will damage local economies and the environment. And immigration experts say that -- at a cost of at least $2.2 billion -- the 700-mile wall would be an expensive boondoggle.

The December House vote of 260-159 is the strongest endorsement yet for building a wall, which Rep. Duncan Hunter, a San Diego County Republican, has been pushing for two decades as a tactic against illegal immigration. Support for the wall was even stronger than for the bill it was attached to -- a larger plan to curb terrorism and illegal immigration sponsored by Wisconsin Republican Rep. James Sensenbrenner that passed 239 to 182.

"It is a tangible demonstration of the seriousness of the United States in not permitting illegal migration into the country," said Jack Martin, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, an advocacy group in Washington, D.C., that favors tighter immigration controls.

Hunter estimates that building two rigid, steel-mesh barriers with a paved road between will cost $2.2 billion, though the price tag could be almost twice that, based on the actual cost of a similar but much shorter fence now under construction in San Diego.

Hunter spokesman Joe Kasper said the money would be well spent.

"The fence in itself is a force multiplier," Kasper said. "It allows Border Patrol agents to refocus their attention to other areas because it won't require as many Border Patrol agents to monitor a location as it would without a fence."

California Sen. Dianne Feinstein said in an e-mail interview that she opposes the Sensenbrenner bill, though she supports a similar fence now being built along 14 miles of the border in San Diego County.

"Fencing in combination with other things, is useful," she said. "One of the things I believe is you have to enforce our nation's borders."

Residents fear impacts

The fence plan is likely to change significantly in the Senate when it takes up immigration reform, border security, employment verification and guest worker proposals in March. Two versions of immigration reform have been introduced in the Senate, but a third, released Friday by Sen. Arlen Specter, was the first to mention a fence, calling for a study of building a "physical barrier system" along the U.S. borders with both Mexico and Canada.

Leaders in many border cities already have vehemently objected to a fence. The city of Calexico in Imperial County passed a resolution in early January opposing it.

"We should be in the construction of bridges of good relationships with Mexico," said Calexico Mayor Alex Perrone, whose city has mutual aid agreements with the police and fire departments in neighboring Mexicali, just over the border in Baja California. Calexico's retail economy depends on Mexican shoppers, he added. "If we don't have Mexico, we don't have Calexico."

Mike Allen, director of the McAllen (Texas) Economic Development Corp., said leaders from along the Rio Grande agreed at a recent gathering: "Every single mayor from Brownsville to El Paso is against it.

"We want people to support our immigration laws because we live here," said Allen, who lives a half-mile from the border. "But this will be a tremendous waste of money, and it will not stop (illegal) immigration. People will just go around it."

Among those hurt most by illegal immigration are members of the Tohono O'odham Indian tribe, whose desert land stretches along 70 miles of the Arizona-Mexico border. But tribal leaders don't want their land to be fenced, as proposed under the Sensenbrenner bill, because that would prevent Indian people and wildlife from crossing the border as they are accustomed to. "We need the Border Patrol, but we have to balance that with respecting the sovereignty of our nation, our land and our people," tribal Chairwoman Vivian Juan-Saunders said in an interview last year. "It's a sensitive balancing act."

Outside Douglas, Ariz., ranchers Warner and Wendy Glenn have seen the number of illegal immigrants crossing their land skyrocket over the past decade. The Glenns rely on the Border Patrol but enforcement doesn't stop the influx; it just shifts where migrants cross, Wendy Glenn said.

A "monster fence" would block migration paths for deer, javelina, coyotes and mountain lions, and damage the sensitive desert ecosystem; accompanying new patrol roads could even create easier routes for smugglers, she said.

"It will only open up more access for drugs and illegals, with more traffic and more damage," Glenn said. "Washington policymakers have no clue what is happening out here on the ground."

Barrier takes many forms

Fencing of some kind already exists along 106 miles of the border, mostly near cities, including San Diego, El Paso and Nogales, Ariz. Most of it consists of welded panels of corrugated steel recycled from portable landing strips the Army used in Vietnam.

Elsewhere, the international line varies from a few strands of barbed wire tacked to wooden fence posts to a winding river where egrets and roseate spoonbills forage.

A fence could be a valuable tool for the Border Patrol, said spokesman Sal Zamora, but building it will be easier said than done.

"Though in theory it might sound like a viable option, in practice it might not be," he said. "I don't know that environmental impact assessments or feasibility studies have been done."

Zamora also said manpower and technology -- night-vision cameras, motion detectors, helicopters and unmanned aerial drones -- are as important as fencing in cutting off illegal border crossings.

Even as fencing and patrols increased steadily over the past dozen years, the number of people arrested trying to cross illegally fluctuated. Illegal crossings may be more reflective of the international economy than border patrol efforts, according to immigration experts.

San Diego's 14-mile double fence has been in the works since 1996. But construction of the 15-foot-high, rigid, steel-mesh barrier, which is the model for the proposed fence, has been stalled by environmental concerns even though Congress gave the Department of Homeland Security authority to disregard environmental and other laws in an effort to speed fence construction.

Roughly $39 million has been spent on the project so far, according to Hunter's office, and Homeland Security plans to spend $35 million more.

If that $74 million is enough to finish the job (Border Patrol officials say the cost could keep rising) and the price is multiplied over the proposed 700 miles, the new fence could run $3.7 billion. Even that estimate doesn't take into account the expense of purchasing or condemning many miles of privately owned land abutting the border or of potential legal challenges.

Other avenues to entry

Illegal border crossings and drug smuggling have dropped in urban areas over the past dozen years, a sign that fortifying walls there and reinforcing them with cameras, buried motion detectors and a doubling of Border Patrol personnel may have worked.

Typical migration routes have shifted to more remote and treacherous regions, however, and border-crossing deaths have increased eight-fold over the past decade to 473 last year. Migrants increasingly hire smugglers, at $1,500 a pop, to help them make the three-day hike through parched and rocky terrain.

The number of unauthorized immigrants to the United States remained more or less steady from 1996 to 2005, according to demographer Jeff Passel of the Pew Hispanic Center in Washington, D.C. He said 700,000 to 750,000 people enter the country illegally each year, helping raise the total to a record 11 million in 2005.

As many as one-third of those 11 million people did not walk across the border illegally, instead entering the country on tourist, student or work visas and simply staying after the visas expired, Passel estimated.

These visa "overstays" are from China, the Philippines, India, South America, Canada, Ireland and many other countries, said Passel, whose estimates are used by the Department of Homeland Security. Passel emphasized that more than 99 percent of the 25 million to 30 million legal foreign visitors to the United States each year follow the law in general and obey the terms of their visas.

All 19 of the Sept. 11 hijackers entered the country on legitimate visas and only six had violated them by overstaying, enrolling in school when they entered as tourists, or failing to enroll when they entered as students.

Effectiveness is debatable

Building a wall won't address overstays, and it may not even slow foot traffic across the border, many analysts said.

"People will seek other ways to come into the country," said Maria Echaveste, an immigration expert at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think-tank in Washington, D.C. "I suspect more use of water, more use of fraudulent documents, more use of criminal smuggling.

"So long as there are jobs and there is a demand for labor and we are not serious about cracking down on employers who hire undocumented workers, people will seek to come in," Echaveste said.

Deborah Meyers, an expert on Mexican immigration at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., said a crackdown at the border without new legal avenues for immigrants to come and work in this country is doomed to fail.

"We cannot nor should we barricade ourselves off from everything. It's completely unrealistic," Meyers said. "With the money we spend on a fence, we could be reducing the backlogs in processing for legitimate applicants, we could be putting in a system for verification of work authorization, we could be helping Mexico create jobs so people wouldn't have to leave."

The $2.2 billion Hunter estimates the fence would cost could fund almost 2,500 new Border Patrol agents for five years, a 22 percent increase in the force. Or it could increase 15-fold the U.S. Agency for International Development's spending on economic development in Mexico over the next five years.

After the Sensenbrenner bill passed in mid-December, Mexican President Vicente Fox condemned the fence as "shameful" and dispatched his foreign minister to Washington to raise concerns with senior State Department officials.

"It has become very emotional in Mexico," said Allen, the Texas economic development official. Fence backers "say it's not akin to the Berlin Wall," he said.

"But it is," Allen said. "Mexico is our second-largest trading partner, and we're building a wall to keep them out."

Wall is the first step

Hunter, the wall's key backer, is not worried about the impact on this country's relationship with Mexico, his aide said.

"Homeland security cannot be put on hold for diplomatic concerns," Kasper said. "We don't need permission from any other nation as to how best to protect our communities."

Al Garza, executive director for the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, a self-appointed militia group that has been patrolling the border and drawing public attention to the issue of illegal immigration, said before the Senate considers guest worker programs or any other immigration reform, it must beef up border enforcement as a matter of national security.

"The first thing is to secure the border, the rest will take care of itself," Garza said.


[Edited on 2-28-2006 by BajaNews]

Border protections imperil environment

BajaNews - 2-28-2006 at 12:00 AM

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/02/...

Last wilderness area south of San Diego could be damaged

Eilene Zimmerman
February 27, 2006

Imperial Beach, San Diego County -- One of the last stops before you hit the Pacific Ocean on the American side of the U.S.-Mexico border is the Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve.

Here, amid watery grasslands bordered by bright yellow bush sunflowers and pale, feathery deerweed, snowy egrets dash their beaks into the shallow waters -- just one of more than 350 species of birds that use the estuary as a nesting and breeding ground. Twenty kinds of fish also live in these waters, as do a plethora of endangered species.

The reserve, a short drive from the grit of Tijuana to the south and the growing sprawl of San Diego to the north, is all that remains of wilderness in the area, a last refuge for many endangered birds, insects, reptiles and plants.

But in the name of national security, the Department of Homeland Security wants to build 3.5 miles of fencing just south of this federally protected land -- a project environmentalists say could spell disaster for the sensitive ecology of the region.

And despite laws and regulations that could usually prevent such a project from going ahead, the department has new powers to sweep such protections aside.

Last year, environmental groups, including the Sierra Club and the San Diego Audubon Society, sued the federal government, charging that it had not fully disclosed the environmental impact of the project and had failed to adequately analyze alternatives that could accomplish the same goals without destroying rare habitat and endangered species.

The California Coastal Management Program, a state agency that reviews federal activities affecting the coast, said the project, which envisages construction of three 15-foot-high steel fences, new roads and stadium-style lighting, violates California's federally approved coastal management program.

But the Department of Homeland Security, under powers given to it by Congress in May, has the authority to waive any law -- including environmental protections -- in order to build barriers and roads at the border.

"Congress got tired of waiting for the environmental community (to approve the plan)," Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine (San Diego County), said in an interview.

In December, two months after Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff applied the waiver, a federal district court dismissed the environmentalists' lawsuit. The groups will either file an appeal or an entirely new lawsuit challenging the legality of the waiver, said their attorney Cory Briggs.

"The government is obligated to fully disclose all impact before it undertakes a project, and it didn't do that," said Briggs. "They covered up the (likely) impacts and when ... the public called them on the carpet for it, they went to Congress to waive the laws, rather than explain themselves to a federal judge."

Of particular concern to environmentalists is a 300-foot gulley in the reserve known as Smuggler's Gulch. An unattractive piece of land, the gulch is strewn with plastic cups, soda cans, discarded clothes and tires, and skinny dogs from the Mexican side of the border nosing around in the trash.

It is also a pathway for people and drugs being smuggled across the border.

Under the government's plan, the tops of two nearby mesas would be carved off, filling the gulch with more than 2 million cubic yards of dirt to make way for a new road. That would cut by half the amount of space available to catch eroding sediment that runs down the canyons during rainstorms into the estuary below, said Tijuana estuary manager Clay Phillips.

Such erosion, environmentalists warn, could wipe out acres of sensitive habitat. Even now, before construction has begun, sediment running down the canyon destroys acres of rare saltwater marsh every time it rains.

A new sediment basin -- a man-made depression designed to catch runoff during storms before it hits the estuary -- was quickly overwhelmed last year and the area lost 15 acres of salt marsh, adding more losses to an already disappearing feature of the American environment.

"Over 90 percent of this kind of land is gone in the U.S.," Phillips said.

The increased erosion, say opponents, will also increase the amount of sewage and toxic waste -- runoff from Tijuana -- that is transported to the ocean by a green, foul-smelling Tijuana River tributary flowing through the gulch. A diversion pipe already gets clogged up regularly, allowing the tributary's polluted water to end up in the Pacific Ocean untreated.

Ironically, one of the components of American security -- the U.S. Navy -- is already being affected by the problem.

One of the Navy's two amphibious training bases in the country is in nearby Coronado. And Naval Special Warfare Center spokesman Lt. Brian Ko, said training exercises were canceled or rescheduled on 25 days last year, because of high levels of pollution in the ocean there.

Ko said no Navy trainees had bacterial infections diagnosed that were attributed to ocean water contamination, but he conceded there is "no way to know if a SEAL is sick because of the water or because of something else."

Responding to such concerns, the Department of Homeland Security has said it will follow "best management practices" throughout construction. Customs and Border Patrol spokesman Salvador Zamora said that means as construction moves forward his agency will be "mindful of the environmental impacts" that might occur and "strongly considers them when making decisions."

A 2003 Immigration and Naturalization Service report to the California Coastal Commission concluded the fencing project would decrease eroding sediment, an assertion called into question by a State Parks & Recreation Department report, which said it found flaws in the agency's analysis. The California Coastal Commission, after looking at both reports, concluded that the fence would damage native habitat and erosion would probably increase.

The dispute over the Tijuana estuary reserve could be just the opening shot in a broader environmental war. In addition to the 14 miles of fencing near San Diego, Hunter, citing national security concerns, added an amendment in December to the House-passed Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Control Act, requiring 700 miles of double fencing to be built at five additional locations along the border -- in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. The Senate is expected to take up the bill next month.

Such fencing could wreak havoc on the rich swath of parks, forests, wilderness areas and habitats for migratory wildlife, animals and plants, say environmentalists.

One of the potentially imperiled species they point to is the Sonoran desert pronghorn -- a type of antelope -- that lives on both sides of the Arizona-Mexico border. Another potentially endangered animal, the jaguar, has just begun to return to the border area after being killed off in the United States about 50 years ago.

"There's no question fencing will end efforts to allow jaguars to recolonize in their native region," said Kim Vacariu, Southwest director for the Wildlands Project, a conservation organization.

Vacariu and other conservationists also worry about how the fences would impact Sky Islands -- a region containing 40 mountains in southeastern Arizona and northern Mexico separated by a sea of grasslands and desert -- which is critical to native plants and to the cross-border movement of animals, reptiles and birds.

Stephen Mumme, a political science professor at Colorado State University who is an expert on environmental issues affecting the border, said the fences' effect on the small arroyos and mountain streams strung across the border also could be devastating.

"We're talking about a very fragile part of the North America continent where the percolation of just inches of water is vital for the maintenance of grasses and plants and different types of cacti. It's essential for their survival," said Mumme.

Zamora, the Border Patrol spokesman, said when it comes to balancing national security concerns with environmental concerns "these are very hard decisions to make," but that the department was sensitive to environmental concerns. He also pointed to one successful outcome of stepped-up border control measures: decreased illegal migrant crossings in high-traffic areas like San Diego has reduced damage to sensitive habitat from migrants trampling and littering the land.

Chertoff's office did not return phone calls requesting comment for this story, but last fall Chertoff met with Vacariu and other conservationists to discuss their concerns. Vacariu said the environmentalists received less time than they would have liked to state their case, and that Chertoff barely spoke during the meeting, but that, "We were grateful to be invited to speak at all."

For environmentalists, however, serious concerns persist, particularly about the Department of Homeland Security's power to exempt itself from environmental regulations.

"There could be a total lack of ability on the part of the public to comment and assist in the planning process," said Vacariu. "Right now it's a game of wait and see, and we really hope the work we've done to elevate recognition of ecological concerns will pay off," he said.

Phillips, the Tijuana estuary manager, pointed to a Homeland Security press release in September in which Chertoff, referring to the San Diego fence project, stated the department would not "compromise its commitment to responsible environment stewardship in the area."

"We're counting on that," Phillips said.

Living by the US-Mexico barrier

BajaNews - 2-28-2006 at 12:06 AM

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4743190.stm

By Franc Contreras
Tijuana, Mexico

An intense debate is under way in the United States over what to do about illegal immigration. The Senate is soon to take up the issue, studying a controversial bill that would see the construction of 1,130km (700 miles) of fencing along parts of the border with Mexico.

People along the western edge of the border, south of San Diego, have been living with a barrier for the past 16 years. Franc Contreras travelled there to ask people on both sides what the divide means to them.

A series of rusty iron panels separate this part of the US from Mexico. On the US side of the border, many people call it "the fence".

Muriel Watson, who was largely responsible for getting the barrier built, says that before it went up in 1990, this part of the border was wide open.

"There was nothing here. There were some streetlights up there from that Mexican freeway, but as you can see, it's all open fields over there, and when the sun went down, all hell broke loose."

Hundreds, and sometimes thousands of illegal immigrants crossed through here into southern California - Mexicans and Central Americans fleeing poverty and unemployment in their countries.

Ms Watson decided to take action, and in 1989 she organised a movement called Light up the Border.

Dozens of supporters came in their cars to the desert.

They turned on their headlights, shedding light on the situation. The media and Congress quickly took notice. Within a year the barrier went up.

'Sign of respect'

"We knew it was not going to stop everything. But it was the first time in history that anyone knew where the actual international border truly was - they would know if they crossed over that they were breaking the law. So that was important," Ms Watson says.

Stadium lights are now in place, and there are 10 times more border patrol agents on duty than in 1990. Illegal crossings at this part of the border have dramatically decreased.

For Ms Watson, widow of a former border patrol chief, the fence is a sign of respect.

"That fence tells you that's your side, and this is ours. If you want to violate that, that's your choice, but it's our right to say there's a fence," she says.

"Good neighbours have good fences... Nobody gets bent out of shape because of a fence, it's strictly a line of demarcation and respect for the owners on each side."

Over the years, more fencing has been added along this part of the border. It now stretches about 40km (25 miles) from the rugged Tecate mountains to the Pacific Ocean.

The gap

In Tijuana, children play on the sandy beaches.

This is the farthest point of northern Mexico - and for that matter, Latin America. Here, the divide is known as "el muro", or the wall.

In the past few weeks, the US has been rebuilding the metal fence, eroded by the salty sea air.

The new divide is made of railroad tracks plunged deep into the sand, sticking some six metres (20ft) up in the air.

And where the old barrier and the new one meet, there is a gap.

In broad daylight, small groups of Mexicans are going through it. A little girl grabs her mother by the hand and both step into the US. A retired man called Enrique Manzo also tries it.

He says it is the first time he has ever set foot on US soil. Mr Manzo, who is in Tijuana visiting relatives, says he cannot wait to tell his son back home about this remarkable moment.

Dangerous routes

Most of the people say they are happy to be in their own country. They had no reason for getting a visa, so for a brief moment they cross the border barrier illegally.

But for a few, it is not the first time.

Alicia Flores explains that she crossed the border illegally a few years back. Her smugglers led her through a hole in the fence on this very same beach.

She worked for six years in California, then returned to Mexico. She thinks the barrier is divisive.

Antonio Ortega leans on the barrier. He calls it a monument to American racism.

"The strongest ones show their power with things like this wall, but it doesn't prevent people from crossing," he says.

"Most now take the dangerous routes through the desert or over the mountains."

Mr Ortega himself made that difficult journey. After 11 failed attempts he finally made it into the US.

Campaign issue

But not everyone on the Mexican side has such strong views.

Further to the east is the border city of Mexicali.

Retired accountant Francisco Perez says the people on this part of the border have also lived many years with a barrier dividing them, but for him it is no big deal.

"It doesn't affect me because I've had good work here. Besides, I never think of going to live in the US," he says.

Like many Mexicans who live in border communities, Mr Perez has a special visa that allows him to enter the US legally whenever he wants.

He does not think building more barriers will solve the issue of illegal immigration from Mexico. But he does expect the political rhetoric both sides of the border to continue.

That is a safe guess. The US holds Congressional elections in November. Mexicans will vote for a new president in July.

And immigration is a campaign issue in both countries.

ursidae69 - 2-28-2006 at 07:37 AM

Walls in the cities might help, but walls out in rural country areas do nothing for security. Without someone watching every inch, people can go right over a wall. In rural areas it is not worth the environmental effects, deer, javalina, jaguars, and a host of other animals are all migratory and this wall will muck all that up. Even in the first article posted, Warner Glenn, a local rancher in southern AZ, thinks the wall in rural areas is a bad deal. Call your congressmen!

surfer jim - 2-28-2006 at 08:56 AM

Build the wall...and build it tall...(and deep)...

ursidae69 - 2-28-2006 at 10:08 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by surfer jim
Build the wall...and build it tall...(and deep)...


You obviously don't know the borderlands very well. I've hiked in several areas near the border in both AZ and NM and building a wall is impossible. There will always be gaps in the wall in rugged areas and the people/drugs will still cross there. Walls are pointless. How many people cross in SoCal alone where there are lots of walls and lots of Border Patrol?

The real solution, that everyone else ignores is simple. If they had a half-way decent economy in Mexico, they wouldn't come here. If we enforced immigration laws for hiring on US employers, they wouldn't come here. If we didn't make every illegal baby born here a citizen, they wouldn't come here. If it wasn't free healthycare to illegals, they wouldn't come here. Why spend billions on a Berlin"esque" wall when we can solve the problem more readily with policy changes at home.

[Edited on 2-28-2006 by ursidae69]

bajarich - 2-28-2006 at 10:34 AM

If you don't want the Mexicans crossing the border, start throwing employers who hire them in jail. A wall is not going to overcome the laws of supply and demand. When Ronald Reagan first sold us on Globalization and sending jobs overseas, it was only a matter of time before we started importing low wage workers into our country for jobs that couldn't be exported. We did that by not enforcing laws against hiring illegals. Those employers are breaking the law every bit as much as the Mexicans who come to work here. They are the ones providing the demand.

ursidae69 - 2-28-2006 at 10:39 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by bajarich
If you don't want the Mexicans crossing the border, start throwing employers who hire them in jail. A wall is not going to overcome the laws of supply and demand. When Ronald Reagan first sold us on Globalization and sending jobs overseas, it was only a matter of time before we started importing low wage workers into our country for jobs that couldn't be exported. We did that by not enforcing laws against hiring illegals. Those employers are breaking the law every bit as much as the Mexicans who come to work here. They are the ones providing the demand.



Bingo!!!! The sad truth is everyone complains, but we really actually want and need the illegals here. Who wants lettuce for 5 bucks a head? Not me.

Taco de Baja - 2-28-2006 at 12:36 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by ursidae69
Who wants lettuce for 5 bucks a head? Not me.


I'll take $5 a head lettuce, especially when my auto insurance and heath insurance will fall by $100's per year. My taxes that now pay for schooling, jailing, and social programs for illegals, can be better spent on citizens. Traffic congestion will be reduced.

It's a give and take situation, and the illegals are taking much more than they are giving.

However, I agree jailing AND fining the employers who hire the illegals is a better solution than a wall, especially when we know there are 1/2 mile long, 80' deep tunnels out there. And if a wall is built, how many of the workers will be illegal day laborers??? Probably a bunch.

The Sculpin - 2-28-2006 at 01:05 PM

Building a wall to curb illiegal immigration is like stopping drugs by "just saying no" or curbing teenage promiscuity by "teaching abstinence".

The horse has already left the barn on these three...so get real.

Being the good libertarian that I am, we should open the border...BOTH WAYS!....treat drugs like alcohol and legalize them, and treat teenage promiscuity as a public health issue, not a moral/religious issue.

:P

comitan - 2-28-2006 at 01:12 PM

Sculpin

My wife says if your running for president she'll vote for you, me too.

Cincodemayo - 2-28-2006 at 01:35 PM

ANYTHING would be an improvement on what we have in office at the moment....with the exception of Hillary. Dick Chaney just called Bill Clinton and asked him if he wanted to go dove hunting this weekend...he also said to bring his wife along.:biggrin:

border between usa and mexico

sylens - 2-28-2006 at 06:47 PM

seems to me to be an absurdly obsolete anachronism that will some day go the way of the berlin wall.

totally agree with ursidae69 and sculpin about ways to reduce numbers of undocumented aliens. but building more walls will make it a constant irritant to the mexican people. even to those who, like (gustavo arellano??) the gentleman from "ask a mexican" says, are mexican-americans who themselves dislike "illegals." i think this irritant will reduce any semblance of cooperation between mexico and the usa in handling this fundamentally economic problem between the two countries.

just mho.

bajarich - 3-3-2006 at 10:12 AM

I wouldn't be surprised if Haliburton or Bechtel get the contract to build it. Probably a no-bid cost-plus contract.

Berlin Wall ??

MrBillM - 3-3-2006 at 10:42 AM

I guess that it would be inevitable that the Berlin Wall Analogy will usually be brought up ************* *****************, but remember that the Berlin Wall and others like it were constructed in Communist, Totalitarian societies to keep their own citizens IN.

I am in favor of using whatever means necessary to deter ILLEGAL immigration into the United States. The idea that illegal immigration is a net benefit to our economy is pure BS. One idea I heard years ago on KFI in Los Angeles was from an inventor that had come up with some booby traps that could be distributed along the border that would explode with an indelible dye that would cover the person(s) and could not be removed for 72 hours. This would certainly make the border jumper stand out in any crowd.

[Edited on 3-4-2006 by BajaNomad]

Not likely to be any legal problems in the way of building a failed wall.

vgabndo - 3-3-2006 at 10:52 AM

Just read HR 418. Like HR 3799, it is so loosely written that Chertoff can overlook ANY law he chooses!

Sting the crooked corporations. The last big corp. I worked for we had an I-9 on everyone, and ran the Soc. Sec. Nos.

Generally isn't too hard to obey the law.

$4 billion?

DanO - 3-3-2006 at 02:44 PM

The first article says it could actually cost almost twice the $2.2 billion estimate (better make that $5 billion with cost overruns). Man, I gotta quit my job and get into the fence building business!

ursidae69 - 3-3-2006 at 03:09 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by MrBillM
I guess that it would be inevitable that the Berlin Wall Analogy will usually be brought up **************** *********************, but remember that the Berlin Wall and others like it were constructed in Communist, Totalitarian societies to keep their own citizens IN.


Hey Bill,

What's with the name calling, go back to off-topic ******** if you want to do that stuff. We are trying to have a legitimate debate here bud. :smug:

Show me any 15 foot fence and I'll show you an 18 foot ladder ready to go over it.

To get Bill back on topic: Bill, why spend billions on a fence that anyone can simply climb over, when you can enforce current laws on employers who hire illegals? If there are no jobs for undocumented aliens, then they will not come here. If there are jobs, then fence or no fence, they will keep coming.

[Edited on 3-4-2006 by BajaNomad]

Not only enforce the existing laws-------

Barry A. - 3-3-2006 at 03:17 PM

-------but make the penalties severe!!! Like "Jessica's law" putting child molesters in jail for 25 yrs min. , if the penalty for employing ILLEGAL aliens was severe (5+ yrs in jail??) then I believe there would be a significant impact on illegal border crossing.

Where am I going wrong, here?

comitan - 3-3-2006 at 03:31 PM

Barry

Your just reasonable our goverment isn't.

boondoggle

tehag - 3-3-2006 at 06:03 PM

Hey 69............

MrBillM - 3-3-2006 at 06:28 PM

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As far as the security measures go, the Lefty ****** always try to make it an "Either-Or" proposition thinking the Conservatives will be turned off by busting employers. Not Me, Pal. Do it All. Bust em and throw them in the can. Build the Walls, nail everyone they can and ship them back. The worst of the employers are the contractors trolling the Home Depots. They're paying the illegals cash under the table so NOTHING goes into the tax coffers. At least when employers hire an illegal using someone else's Social Security number, taxes are collected.

[Edited on 3-4-2006 by BajaNomad]

ursidae69 - 3-4-2006 at 12:02 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by MrBillM
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As far as the security measures go, the Lefty ****** always try to make it an "Either-Or" proposition thinking the Conservatives will be turned off by busting employers. Not Me, Pal. Do it All. Bust em and throw them in the can. Build the Walls, nail everyone they can and ship them back. The worst of the employers are the contractors trolling the Home Depots. They're paying the illegals cash under the table so NOTHING goes into the tax coffers. At least when employers hire an illegal using someone else's Social Security number, taxes are collected.

[Edited on 3-4-2006 by BajaNomad]


Are you kidding, I don't want anyone turned off by busting employers, I want the Home Depot trolling to stop as much as you do. I'm all for pushing new laws to throw them in jail, I'm all for changing the law so being born here doesn't automatically make you a citizen. Glad we agree. We only seem to disagree on building a wall. I'd rather not have several billion go into it not to mention the environmental effects without the easy stuff being looked at first. If we can fix the problem now by making laws tougher, let's go for it!

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MrBillM - 3-4-2006 at 08:06 PM

I've said it before, but I'll say it again.

Moderator Man needs to be a little more creative.
All of those
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Make it look like I'm stuttering rather than spewing (appropriate) invective.

Oh Well.