700-Mile Border Fence
Likely Won't Be Built
n
the last weeks leading up to the November mid-term elections,
an anxious and scandal-ridden Republican-led Congress eager
to appeal to conservative voters authorized construction
of a 700-mile fence along the U.S. border with Mexico. But
just as soon as the news hit the airwaves, lawmakers swiftly
but quietly backtracked by passing companion legislation
that virtually ensures most of the security fence will never
be built.
GOP leaders singled out the fence as a major accomplishment,
heralding belated attention to the massive illegal immigration
pouring across America's inadequately defended southern
border for the last several decades. But in the hours before
recessing, both the House and Senate voted to give the Bush
administration broad latitude to distribute the authorized
$1.2 billion fence money to a combination of other different
projects, not just the fence. The legislation allows the
funds to be spent on roads, technology, and so-called "tactical
infrastructure" to support the Department of Homeland
Security's preferred option that it calls a "virtual
fence." That option does not physically prevent illegal
border crossing. It only detects where breaches occur.
In an apparent betrayal of widely trumpeted campaign promises
to conservative supporters to place priority on border security,
GOP leaders pledged in writing that American Indian tribes,
members of Congress, governors, and local political leaders
can exercise their own judgement in "the exact placement"
of any fence structure, and granted blanket authority to
Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, an amnesty
supporter, to use alternatives "when fencing is ineffective
or impractical."
In other words, Congress granted veto power over fence construction
to a multitude of any number of potential pro-immigration
interests.
An analysis of the legislation by the Washington Post noted
that "the loopholes leave the Bush administration with
authority to decide where, when and how long a fence will
be built, except for small stretches east of San Diego and
in western Arizona."
"It's one thing to authorize. It's another thing to
actually appropriate the money and do it," noted Sen.
John Cornyn, R-TX, a staunch ally of the Bush administration
who has in the past backed various amnesty proposals.
Based on interviews with GOP political campaign planners,
the Washington Post reported that bait-and-switch tactic
deployed on the border fence issue "reflects political
calculations by GOP strategists that voters do not mind
the details" of legislation, and thereby satisfies
opposition to the border fence expressed by administration
officials, the business interests backing the GOP, and the
Mexican government.
In October Ruben Aguilar, spokesman for outgoing Mexican
President Vicente Fox, triumphantly told reporters in Mexico
City that the U.S. will probably never build the fence because
although its construction has been authorized, the funds
have been appropriated.
"There is no money to build it, so it won't be built,"
Aquilar told corporate media representatives. "Even
though the wall was approved, there is no funding."
Mexican interests lobbied strongly against the fence, and
Mexico itself announced it would call on the United Nations
to try to stop it if construction gets under way.
"Without a doubt, we are examining, with the foreign
relations legal team, what options are open at an international
level and we will take them," vowed Luis Ernesto Derbez,
Fox's foreign secretary.
Fox himself, whose country benefits from mass illegal immigration
as millions of impoverished Mexicans transfer their health
and economic burdens away from Mexico and onto the backs
of American taxapayers, called the fence "shameful."
Echoing criticism from former Soviet Communist leader Mikhail
Gorbachev, Fox compared the fence to the Berlin Wall.
Mexico also threatened in a diplomatic note sent to the
U.S. that relations between the two countries would be hurt.
"We think it [the fence] is a gesture that doesn't
reflect the friendship between the nations of Latin America
and the Caribbean and the United States," said Derbez.
The double-layered fence is estimated to cost $3 million
a mile to build. The $1.2 billion authorization was billed
by GOP leaders as a "down payment."
At least one senator admitted the finished product is unlikely
to resemble to all the political hype. Sen. Judd Gregg,
R-NH, chairman of the Senate subcommittee that funds the
Department of Homeland Security, said that only about half
of the fencing is likely to be built.
"I think there'll be fencing where the department feels
that it makes sense," said Greg. He told the Post he
thought "at least 300 to 400 miles" might be built.
The U.S. border with Mexico is 2,000 miles long.
Russ Knocke, spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security
declined to affirm to the Washington Post whether all 700
miles of fencing would ever be built.
Although an estimated 12 million to 16 million illegal aliens
have entered the county in recent decades, the department
prefers to "test" a high-tech detection system,
rather than begin construction on security fencing.
"We plan to build a little and test a little,"
said Knocke. "Stay tuned. We're optimistic that Congress
is going to provide the department with flexibility."
He said the department plans to spend $67 million to test
a remote sensing system he called a "virtual fence"
along a small 28 mile stretch of the border south of Tucson
over an eight month period.
Despite the apparent betrayal of voters, the GOP's top immigration
negotiator and champion of border security embarked on what
he called a "victory tour" of border states in
the weeks before the election, trumpeting the message that
Republicans are for border security. Rep. James Sensenbrenner,
Jr. of Wisconsin, the primary author of the House's popular
immigration enforcement legislation that the Senate refused
to consider, claimed that supporters of border security
have won a major victory.
"I want the American public to know that we won on
this, and the House Republicans were able to not only pass,
but fund important border security measures," he said.
Sensenbrenner is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.
At news conferences in Scottsdale, Arizona, and San Diego,
Sensenbrenner touted the GOP's prowess in meeting the demands
of voters.
"It's what the people of this country want," he
said. "They want to know that we're modernizing the
border so we can better secure the border."
