Border Fence - What's the Latest?

[presidio]

This little "politics" spot on the BBC index is specifically for this type of discussion.

Part of our responsibility as citizens is to have these types of discussions.
It's not about all agreeing, it is about the discussion.

Zach

Quite right.

[SHANEA]

Apaches on the Warpath

[presidio]

Apaches on the Warpath

Good for them!

[SHANEA]

Land owners impacted by proposed fence, urged to get free legal help

[RichardM]

why not step back a few miles with the fence?

Hey, wait a minute....you may be on to something.  After all, if a few miles are good, wouldn't a lot be better?  And if a lot is better still, why not a whole bunch?  Pretty soon that fence will be all the way up in Canada and will be their problem.

[presidio]

I am not advocating a fence, but if we just have to have one, ask yourselves where would you rather have it.  North of BIBE or down the middle of Santa Elena Canyon?

Okay boys and girls, get your maps out and follow along. I think a fence is ridiculous and an exercise in futility but, if one must be erected, here is where you do it---

All locations are the south or west right-of-way fence on these highways:

I-10 from El Paso to Van Horn
US 90 from Van Horn to Del Rio
US 277 from Del Rio to Carrizo Springs
US 83 from Carrizo Springs to Harlingen
US 77 Harlingen to Brownsville

This extremely well-thought out plan (if I may take credit for my own remarkable achievement in routing  ) will do the following--

a) make it extremely easy to patrol....just drive the paved roads looking for jumpers. No more hustling through the scrub looking for tracks that often aren't there.
b) encompass the best part of TX, the entire Big Bend area, in a massive area of open space where the border can once again be open.
c) will provide a sufficient buffer in most areas that those who are most xenophobic will never have to enter the region.
d) since right-of-way fencing already exists, the additional impacts of attempting to make it penetration-proof will be minimal (well, you will have to sacrifice the view south and west when you are driving, but think of the comfort, safety and security that will assuage all those who think a fence/wall is a viable solution. They can bask in the shadow of a structure of fear as they speed toward their destinations, secure in the knowledge that all is well and right.
e) the xenophobes and the DHS will leave me and the border alone.

[dos zetas]

Your excellent plan to provide a feeling of security to the freeway people could be improved only by projecting a holographic image of a ferocious militaristic fence, complete with armored Rambos.  along the south of every freeway in Texas.
What a great  idea! AND Boeing or Halliburton could do it for under a million bucks a mile.

Zach

[presidio]

xenophobes...had to look that one up.

'A person unduly fearful or contemptuous of that which is foreign, especially of strangers or foreign peoples'.

My view...Immigrants.. .the cream of the crop from back home.  Ambition, drive, willing to take risks.  These are the folks that by and large, you WANT to be here.

I agree.

[SHANEA]

Groups United to Fight Border Wall

[presidio]

Groups United to Fight Border Wall

Last month, DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff admitted that no potential terrorists had ever been apprehended on the southern border, and that he doesn’t “see any imminent threat of terrorists infiltrating from Mexico.” However, DHS has frequently referred to the imminent threat of “terrorists and terrorist weapons” crossing the southern border in order to justify the breakneck speed of border wall construction.

By contrast, the heavily fortified San Diego Sector, where a triple-layer wall divides the border, saw a 7% increase in illegal crossing, suggesting that walls are not a meaningful deterrent for undocumented crossers. Indeed, a June 2007 Congressional Research Service report concluded that the walls in San Diego had “no discernible impact” on the number of people entering the U.S. illegally. Border Patrol has also stated repeatedly that a wall only slows crossers down by a few minutes.

The groups are also calling for an immediate suspension and repeal of section 102 of the Real ID Act of 2005, which gives DHS Secretary Chertoff the power to waive all laws in order to build the border wall. Such power concentrated in the hands of an unelected official makes a mockery of democratic processes.

What a classic example of how fear is so easily used to drive political processes when facts won't support the desired outcome. However, do not expect a bureaucratic surrender just because the watchdogs and the agencies themselves skewer both the assumptions and the results. The present administration, taking a cue from the immediately preceding administration, operates on the principle that a lie told often enough will be accepted as truth. So, don't expect much to change since an about-face on this issue only would illustrate how inept was the original position, even though it has long been known to any aware person. Can't have logic suddenly come on the scene and repudiate a fundamental underpinning of a flawed scheme.

[harold]

I have to try to inject a little common sense into this thread:

1. There are 1952 miles of border between the US and Mexico.

2. The border fence authorization was for 700 miles of fence.

3. Congress is already trying to defund the fence.

4. There is a rather large NATURAL barrier in Big Bend, think canyons.

With that in mind who in actually believes that even our gov't. will actually try to build a fence through the park?  Come on get real !  If you are against border security and welcome all illegals to our country, just say so. Honest discussion over differing opinions is healthy and fun. Just don't try to hype some farfetched, fear mongering, diatribe against a fence that is not planned and never will be built. They probably won't even build the fence where it would make sense, in high traffic (crime) areas. According to the last poll I saw the opinion among Americans was 56 to 35 in favor of the fence.  I say seal the border, deport all illegals that are arrested for criminal behavior, expand the guest worker program to allow Mexicans to legally work in the U.S., and make sure the employers pay the payroll taxes on all employees. The illegals already here will, through attrition, gradually diminish as a percentage of the population.  Maybe a little simplistic but you've got to start somewhere.

Of course that's just my opinion and I could be wrong.

[chisos_muse]

I have to try to inject a little common sense into this thread:

Oh Harold, this is the politics thread! 

Besides, even after you've made you point and spoken your view with all of it's grandest validity and fact.....somebody's gonna come back and shoot it down and contest it. energizer bunny....

[SHANEA]

Border security is a joke.  The supposed 9/11 terrorists didn't even come in from Mexico or Canada in the first place, I'll omit the fact that the vast majority of them were from Saudi Arabia in the first place or that members of the Bin Lauden family were allowed to be whisked out on their own jets (even under the order of the FAA ground stop) the day after 9/11 - even before the administration even supposedly knew who the culprit was supposed to be, but that's for another discussion.  If we are so worried about border security, then why are we not building a fence up in Canada?   All Border Security is - is to allow the Halliburtons, Bechtel, and other parts of the  large military industrial complex to rake in the big bucks at a couple of million dollars a mile.   Well, I can easily walk/swim from many parts in Big Bend back and forth - but I'd never do something like that - and I'd certainly not admit something like that on a public chat board.     So, next time you are sitting in the hot springs, imagine what it will look like with a fence around it.  I mean, we've got to keep Victor out.   History has proven time and time again that fences don't make good neighbors and are pretty much worthless for keeping someone out.  Actually, fences can be pretty darn good for keeping people in.  Damn, I'm on a roll.  Maginot line, Berlin Wall, Great wall of China.  Oops, someone kicked me off my soap box...   

The problem is that the Mexican economy is in shambles and instead of spending close to a trillion dollars "fighting terrorism" - maybe we should be helping out the economy to the south of the border?  Huge report out saying that much of the reason our gas prices are so high right now is that our mighty millitary is sucking up huge amounts of it - the US Military is the worlds single largest consumer of petroleum. 

[Sophora Bean]

April fools day notice.

http://www.dhs.gov/xnews/releases/pr_1207080713748.shtm

[presidio]

April fools day notice.

http://www.dhs.gov/xnews/releases/pr_1207080713748.shtm

It might have been issued on April Fools' Day, but it ain't no joke. They have all those powers and they exercise them.