Indigenous Texans Want UN Support Against Border Fence

Texas Tribune
May 23, 2014
by Julian Aguilar

EL CALABOZ, Texas — Eloisa Tamez remembers the exact day five years ago when she said it took the federal government just 24 hours to seize and plow through a parcel of land that had been in her Lipan Apache family for generations.

Following two years of courtroom battles with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the agency got the go-ahead in 2009 to extend its controversial border fence across her land. Since then, roughly 75 percent of her formerly three-acre lot has been behind a steel barrier, land that's now the property of the federal government.

Tamez isn’t alone in her opposition to the fence, which was erected to stop undocumented immigrants, human smugglers and drug traffickers from breaching the U.S. border. But her family's allegations that the fence discriminates against Native American tribes with land along the border has added a complicated new layer to the debate.

In partnership with the Human Rights Clinic at the University of Texas School of Law, Tamez and other Lipan Apaches are seeking relief from the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. They allege that the fence has “blocked access to sacred sites and deprives the Lipan Apache of their First Amendment right to express their religious freedoms at certain traditional ceremonies," according to a news release issued when the clinic submitted its report to the U.N. in February. (That report is a supplement to earlier reports the Lipan Apaches and the UT law clinic have submitted to federal and U.N. officials.)

A spokesman for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Rio Grande Valley sector, whose jurisdiction includes El Calaboz in Cameron County, did not respond to a request for comment on the report. The agency would only say that it usually does not comment on pending legal issues.

The federal government has argued that the fence, combined with technology and manpower, is essential to border security. And some border residents have lauded its arrival, saying their land was overrun with trespassers before its construction.

But other border residents, immigrants, environmentalists and human rights groups have not seen the fence in such a positive light. They argue that it sends the wrong message to the U.S.'s southern neighbor and is a waste of resources that hasn’t stopped the flow of illegal migration.

Tamez, who was compensated about $58,000 for her land, said she took the federal money in protest, and used it to fund scholarships for nursing students at the University of Texas at Brownsville.
“I am not going to personally use the money that the government has given me due to this injustice; I want it to live forever in my parents' name,” she said. “They are the ones who worked hard on this land to give us a life.”

Margo Tamez, Eloisa’s daughter and a professor of indigenous studies at the University of British Columbia, said the Lipan Apaches never surrendered their land to the federal government and, under current treaty obligations, still have a right to craft their own cultural, educational and governmental practices. Without access to all of their land, she said, those rights are curtailed, hindering the tribe's ability to maintain its culture.

“The indigenous people such as the Lipan Apaches are vulnerable and threatened,” she said. “They have already been subject to assimilation.”

The latest report filed with U.N. officials argues that seizure of Native American land requires consent, and that there is legal precedent for it.

“Indigenous communities have a right to be previously consulted in deciding any measures that affect their territory,” the report states.

The Tamez family wants the border wall to come down, an unlikely scenario.

But Ariel Dulitzky, the director of UT Law's Human Rights Clinic, said other positive outcomes are possible, including financial compensation for the Lipan Apaches or at least a recommendation for more consultation with affected populations in the future.

“The [U.N.] could recommend that the U.S. adopt a measure to take into consideration the rights of the Lipan Apaches — for instance, how the Border Patrol carries out activities in the Lipan Apache areas,” he said.

Dulitzky said he expects a response this summer. The timing could be crucial as the government considers further expanding the border fence. If the U.S. Congress passes immigration reform, it is likely that border security triggers will be included in the legislation. Several Republican lawmakers have said additional fencing is a key element to heightening security.

“New legislation is expected to double and triple the border wall fencing and presence of border patrol agents,” the report states. “If the [U.S. government] is not held to account for the legacy of colonization and the border wall’s discriminatory effects, critical traditional knowledge will be lost.”

http://www.texastribune.org/2014/05/22/indigenous-texans-seek-un-support-over-border-fenc/

Border fence construction nears completion in Hope Park

Brownsville Herald
December 26, 2010
by Jazmine Ulloa

On a crisp December morning, Justo Ahumada stood at the edge of the levee near Hope Park watching a group of construction workers ply at the rusty iron fence now snaking its way along the U.S.-Mexico border. Their highlighter-yellow jackets beamed under the gray skies.

He pointed to a spot beyond them, just within sight, where he crossed the Rio Grande from Matamoros for the first time. He had been 17, maybe 18.

“There weren’t any Border Patrol agents back then,” he recalled. “We’d cross to work for the season, then we’d cross back to go home, back with our family.”

Now employees with the construction company, Kiewit, are extending the U.S.-Mexico border fence, finishing up the one mile in Brownsville needed to complete the 34 miles slated for Cameron County. The iron bars stretch along Military Highway and block the view of the river from Hope Park, a green space created off Levee Street to commemorate ties between the United States and Mexico.

Texas, which was allocated about 115 miles of fencing, is the last state to see the initiative completed, according to the Department of Homeland Security. About 1.3 miles of the fence are still to be constructed in El Paso and Del Rio — another 0.2 miles of fencing devised to prevent vehicles from crossing the border were planned for and already created along the state’s southern border.

For those who fought against the creation of the fence — dubbed the “The Wall” by its opponents — its completion is disheartening, a historic symbol that will long divide a once bicultural, binational area. It is also a sign the battle might be over, though some refuse to lose it. Still, those in favor of enhanced border security say it’s a necessary step to ensure the nation’s safety, especially as the drug war rages in open warfare on the streets of Mexico.

Among those most bereaved by the final installation of the fence are property owners. Eloisa Tamez remembers when federal surveyors came to her door in 2008, asking her to sign property condemnation documents — papers that would outright hand over the land her family has nurtured and cultivated since 1767, when they attained it through a Spanish land grant.

She quickly became one of the most vocal opponents against the fence, grazing the front page of the New York Times and the cover of The Economist. She denied the contractors access to her property, and was sued the federal government and to this day continues in court proceedings with DHS.

“There are gaps all over the fence, and they have not compensated any of us for our land,” she said. “They continue with the injustice, and reasons to validate it keep changing.”

When plans for the fence began rolling forward, Tamez recalls, the federal government said the construction was to protect the United States from terrorists crossing into the United States. Now they say the fence is needed to protect against violence surging Mexico, she said.

Rusty Monsees, who back in 2008 agreed to sell 3.3 acres of his land to the government, was still sued by the government, even as he was one of the staunchest advocates for the fence. The lawsuit filed against him – one of more than 100 land condemnation cases pending in Cameron County – was a type of case the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers called a "friendly land condemnation."

Now workers have built the fence running through his citrus yard, cutting him access to some of his acreage. Monsees believes the fence is worthless and a waste.

“It is a bad use of money,” he said. “When they (government officials) asked me about the fence initially, I said I thought it was a good idea. But if you do not follow up, people learn to get around it. You have to have people on the ground, and you have to have them on the ground every day, 24 hours a day in specific areas for patrol.”

The average cost of pedestrian fence, which is designed to prevent the passage of people, across all of the nation’s sectors is $6.5 million per mile — including all planning, material and construction costs with the exception of costs associated with adverse condemnation. That totals to about $748 million in Texas alone. The average cost of fence designed specifically to prevent vehicles from passing through is $1.8 million per mile.

But Daniel Milian, supervisor of Public Affairs for the U.S. Border Patrol, said the fence was an added security measure for the country, helping the department with its day-to-day operations and putting its resources to better use.

The fence “serves a delay, it becomes another obstacle for smugglers,” he explained. “It also provides a bottleneck effect. It forces them to cross in areas where we have the technical advantage, where we have more time to respond.”

Back at the riverside, Ahumada, 84, says he must have made the journey through the roads from his native Tampico in Tamaulipas, the river and into Brownsville more than six times, he said. Like millions before him, he came to the United States in search of jobs and new opportunities. But when he realized an anti-immigrant sentiment growing in the country, he settled in Bayview in the 1950s, where he picked crops and worked odd jobs. He eventually became a U.S. citizen.

"What a shame for the people coming to look for work these days," he lamented.

http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/news/border-120934-fence-park.html

A Small Victory in the Border Wall Boondoggle

Texas Observer
March 5, 2010
by Melissa del Bosque

Much has been written in the Observer about the border wall boondoggle winding its way along the Texas-Mexico border. At $2.4 billion and counting the 670 mile border wall ranges from California to Texas. Several landowners in Texas are still fighting for fair compensation for their land from the U.S. government.

Brownsville landowner Eloisa Tamez, 74, has been one of the most outspoken landowners against the 18-foot wall being built through her backyard. In January, I wrote a story “All Walled Up” about the battle between Cameron County landowners such as Tamez and the Department of Homeland Security who has seized their land to build the wall.

At the time, DHS was back for more and planned to seize an additional piece of her property so that she would be unable to access her land on the southern side of the wall.

The other day she sent me some good news in an email “DHS backed away. I was notified that there will not be a second taking,” she wrote. “I want the people to know that it pays to raise your voice when the government practices injustice and violates human rights.”

Finally, some good news to report on the border wall front. Eloisa Tamez has been a consistent crusader for the rights of border landowners. It’s good to see a victory among all of the injustice.

http://www.texasobserver.org/lalinea/a-small-victory-in-the-border-wall-boondoggle

Judge's Order: hole in wall

Brownsville Herald
April 24, 2009
by Kevin Sieff

The border fence on Eloisa Tamez's property may be complete, but the case is not yet closed, according to state District Judge Andrew Hanen.

On Friday morning, Hanen held a hearing to discuss Tamez's request for a temporary restraining order - a request filed Thursday just as the government was beginning construction behind her El Calaboz home.

Construction on the fence was completed the same day that the TRO request was made and before Hanen could take any action on it.

Tamez claimed in the request that federal officials shirked a previous Hanen order to consult with her before beginning construction.

The restraining order request is moot now that the barrier is up, Hanen said Friday, but he suggested that the government should accommodate Tamez's concerns about access to her property - half of which is south of the fence. The government's current plan is to provide several gates for landowners. But the closest one to Tamez's home is a mile away, making her property effectively inaccessible, her attorney, Peter Schey, argued.

Hanen was receptive to Tamez's concerns - and her desire for access - citing her property's cultural and historical significance. "We're not going to put in a turnstile so that illegal immigrants have access," Hanen assured two federal attorneys.

But the attorneys were steadfast in their opposition to a gate on Tamez's land.

"With all due respect, I don't think that's going to happen," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin Aiman. "A gate at that particular location does not meet the operational concerns of (U.S. Customs and Border Protection)."

Unsatisfied with that conclusion, Hanen asked the two parties to negotiate privately. When their meeting proved ineffective, the judge decided to visit Tamez's property himself on Friday afternoon. Hanen walked with attorneys and border patrol agents from Tamez's land to the nearest access point and then along the levee to the southern half of her tract. It was about a 45-minute jaunt, according to one of Tamez's attorneys, Corinna Spencer-Scheurich.

"It was a big gesture on his (Hanen's) part," Spencer-Scheurich said. "I hope he sees that the government needs to be penalized in some way for failing to consult with Dr. Tamez."

http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/news/tamez_97315___article.html/hanen_property.html#slComments

Border fence fight persists: Landowner: Government violated court order by building wall

Brownsville Herald
April 23, 2009
by Kevin Seiff

Less than one week after a federal judge cleared the way for construction of the border fence on Eloisa Tamez's property, the barrier has been completed on her swath of land in El Calaboz.

But Tamez and her attorneys say the government ignored U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen's court order by hastily building the fence. On April 16, Hanen mandated federal officials to "consult with the landowners of the property in question prior to exercising the rights given in this order."

But according to Tamez, no such consultation ever took place. After she noticed construction materials on her property, her attorney, Peter Schey, filed for a temporary restraining order on Thursday, claiming that the court's stipulation had been ignored. "We would like to begin an immediate discussion regarding the defendant's concerns," Schey wrote.

But by 3 p.m. Thursday, the fence had already been built on Tamez's three-acre property, before a hearing on the restraining order could take place. Construction was completed in less than 24 hours.

"It's an outrage," Tamez said. " The government is acting without regard for the judge's decision."

The court-ordered consultation was meant to inform Tamez when and how her property would be transferred to the government and how the barrier's environmental impact would be minimized.

A hearing meant to address Tamez's request for a restraining order is scheduled for 9 a.m. today in Hanen's court, but with construction now complete it's unclear what purpose it will serve.

Tamez has her own suggestions.

"They're going to have to tear it down," she said. "They can't get away with this."

Throughout the 18-month-long case, the federal government has declined requests for comment due to pending litigation.

http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/news/tamez_97265___article.html/property_order.html

Path of the border wall cuts off land grant heir’s property

New Mexico Independent
April 17, 2009
by Marjorie Childress

ALBUQUERQUE — Even though Dr. Eloisa Tamez calls Texas home, she was in New Mexico Thursday afternoon when she got some unwanted news.

In the name of border security, the federal government served her condemnation papers on part of the border-land that’s been in her family for generations.Tamez, who was in town for an academic conference, told NMI that her attorneys emailed her about the condemnation order earlier in the day.

As President Obama traveled to Mexico this week, many folks were focusing on hotly debated security threats coming from Mexico. But the Tamez case illustrated to others why New Mexicans ought to be paying as close attention to what’s happening just across the border in Texas by the U.S. government itself.

Tamez, a University of Texas at Brownsville professor of nursing, owns three acres of land in El Calaboz, Texas, “just up the river” from Brownsville. The property is a remnant of what her family once owned — but one that has a lot of meaning for her.

What many may not realize is that in Texas the federal government is using eminent domain powers to take private property of U.S. citizens north of the border in order to build the so-called border wall, often effectively cutting property owners off from their land south of the newly constructed wall.

The massive wall being constructed along the U.S./Mexico border does not sit on the actual border, which in Texas is the Rio Grande.

Tamez’s land was once part of the San Pedro de Carricitos Land Grant, created by the King of Spain in 1767. While it was handed down to Tamez through many generations, her heritage on the land actually predates even the land grant, she explained. Tamez’s ancestors include tribal members of the indigenous Lipan Apache.

And now, the federal government wants to cut her off from most of her land.

That’s because her property sits square in the path of the authorized border wall. Tamez has been fighting the efforts of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to condemn and bisect her land with the wall since 2007 — one of the last hold-outs in her community.

She’s tried to meet the government half way, she said, offering to replace a barbed wire fence on her property with a 10-foot wall. And she’s asked for an opening in the wall that would allow her to access what would be over half of her land south of the wall. She said she hasn’t received a response from the government.

While government officials have told Tamez that the wall will only take a quarter of an acre of her land, she said, Tamez totals the loss much higher — more than half of the land will be gone because there will be no access to it. Nor will it be worth much on the market if she’s forced to sell, she added.

And, as she learned yesterday, time is running out. She was in Albuquerque to give a presentation on the very topic Thursday at the Western Social Sciences Association Conference at the University of New Mexico. That is when she learned she had been served with the condemnation notice by the feds.

When it comes to the land condemnations in Texas, maps of the location of the new walls show them running through many lower-income, Mexican American communities, Tamez said.

This is easily seen on the ground as well, she said, with the wall stopping at wealthy resorts with golf courses.

“They choose our communities because immigrants blend in,” she said. “But that’s stereotyping and discriminatory. Not to mention, un-American.”

Tamez said she had hoped things would be different with President Obama, but that’s not been the case so far.

“They talk about cultural sensitivity, but have ignored us and continued to move forward with the contracts to build the wall,” she elaborated.

“I’m appalled that the president right away said this country would stop the torture and close Guantanamo. But what does he call what’s happening to us? Do we not count?”

Other participants at the WSSA Conference, when hearing about the condemnation notice delivered to Tamez, said New Mexicans should sit up and take notice.

Cynthia Bejaranos, a professor of criminal justice at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, said the land condemnations in Texas are a trend in the “de-constitutionalization” of border communities.

“I’m a fourth generation U.S. citizen who grew up in Anthony, and have been a resident of the border region my entire life,” she told NMI. “The institutional law enforcement presence with associated police tactics and surveillance has grown massively, with serious implications for the human rights of our Mexican-American communities.”

“I have to go through a checkpoint every time I leave Las Cruces, in any direction,” she continued. “These measures are in the name of border security, but over the past 20 years I’ve seen little to warrant it. And this condemnation of private land in other parts of the southwest are part of the trend — many of us wonder if it’s the next thing we’ll have to deal with.”

http://newmexicoindependent.com/25220/path-of-the-border-wall-cuts-off-land-grant-heirs-property

Judge clears way for border fence on Eloisa Tamez's land

Associated Press / Brownsville Herald
April 16, 2009
by Christopher Sherman

McALLEN - A federal judge rejected the last of the objections from one of the border fence's fiercest opponents Thursday, giving the government immediate possession of her land and clearing the way for construction to begin.

U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen issued his order in Brownsville, denying the arguments from Eloisa Tamez that the government failed to provide enough information about the fence it will build, the access that will be available from her land in El Calaboz and its offer of compensation.

Tamez's persistent legal fight against the border fence delayed for more than a year the government's efforts to take possession of a quarter acre of land she said was part of a Spanish land grant to her family.

Neither Tamez nor her attorney Peter Schey immediately returned calls seeking comment.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has nearly completed the 670 miles of fencing mandated by Congress along the U.S.-Mexico border. South Texas landowners have proved to be some of its staunchest opponents.

Construction of the border fence in the rural El Calaboz community was already proceeding around Tamez's property.

Tamez and others had hoped the new administration of President Barack Obama might halt the fence, but the Department of Homeland Security has allowed the portions where contracts to build the fence were already awarded to proceed.

Tamez and other South Texas landowners won a battle in December when Hanen rejected government requests that a land commission be established to determine how much the government paid property owners for their land. Instead, Tamez and others will be able to argue their cases before juries later this year.

The government has offered $13,500 for Tamez's .26 acres.

In Hanen's order Thursday, he ruled that the government had explained sufficiently the type of gates that would be installed within a half-mile of Tamez's property, the form of the 15 to 18 foot fence and how it arrived at the $13,500 compensation figure.

The order noted that $8,500 was for the slice of land and $5,000 was for the negative impact on the remaining three-acre property.

http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/news/tamez_97016___article.html/fence_government.html

Tamez loses legal battle to stop DHS building border fence

Rio Grande Guardian
April 17, 2009

McALLEN, April 16 - U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen in Brownsville on Thursday issued an order granting the federal government's request to condemn the ancestral land of the Tamez family.

University of Texas at Brownsville Professor Eloisa Tamez has gained international acclaim for her efforts to stop a border wall being built on her 0.26 acres of land in rural El Calaboz, Cameron County.

Tamez is Lipan Apache. Her land has been in the family since before Spanish colonization. It was designated to them through Spanish Crown law. Now, her supporters say, it is in the possession of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Tamez could not be reached for comment at press time. However, she did predict the government would eventually take her land in an interview with the Guardian in January, 2008.

“I just believe that eventually I will probably lose the land, not that I will quit fighting,” Tamez said.

Click here to watch Tamez video.

Tamez has fought the border wall plan in federal court for over a year, arguing that the government failed to communicate its plans.

Attorney Abner Burnett, of the Texas Civil Rights Project in San Juan, represented Tamez.

“DHS is acting like bullies,” Burnett told the Guardian, when the lawsuit was filed. “They had the opportunity to come and talk to these people and say here’s what we would like to do. They could have met in a coffee shop. They did not do that. They said, we are coming on your land and if you don’t sign a waiver we’re going to sue you.”

Tamez won a partial battle last year when Hanen ordered the Department of Homeland Security to enter into meaningful negotiates with her. In his ruling, Thursday, Hanen said he was satisfied the government had negotiated in good faith.

Under the ruling, the government must pay Tamez $13,500 before the 15 to 18 feet high fence can be erected. The ruling said seizure of the land is worth $8,500 and the distress caused to the family is worth $5,000.

Ironically, Tamez, heard about Hanen’s order while participating in the Western Social Sciences Association (WSSA) Conference in Albuquerque, where she was participating in a Three part panel: “Indigenous People's and the U.S.-Mexico Border: Militarization, Resistance, and Rights.”

She is with a group of colleagues from several bi-national indigenous border communities and experts on militarization and the impact of the border wall. “I am captive in my own land,” Tamez told the conference.

“The Tamez family reports that this is an urgent situation which needs international attention and wide press coverage,” said Wendy Kenin, a friend of the Tamez family.

Kenin said Eloisa Tamez will be available for interview between panel discussions on militarization of the border and resistance on the border at the WSSA conference on Friday.

http://www.riograndeguardian.com/rggnews_story.asp?story_no=21

Fence building in Brownsville leaves rough edges

March 27, 2009
Brownsville Herald / The Monitor
by Kevin Seiff

BROWNSVILLE - Eva Lambert woke up one morning in late February to the sound of heavy machinery. When she stepped outside, she saw tractor-trailers and cranes along the levee behind her home in El Calaboz, 15 miles west of Brownsville.

Then she saw the border fence's steel beams - 18 feet tall and rust-colored. She watched as they were erected one by one on her property.

"I was shocked," she said. "They pulled out the hurricane fence in our backyard. They messed everything up."

But Lambert's biggest surprise was that the federal government began construction without giving her her any compensation.

Unlike her neighbors, who were awarded more than $10,000 in exchange for their assent, Lambert was never asked to sign a contract allowing fencing on her property.

"But that didn't stop them from starting construction," she said Friday, pointing to the steel barrier in her backyard. "In the end, the government does what it wants."

DHS did not respond to calls for comment.

Since February, the federal government has completed construction on several miles of fencing in Lambert's El Calaboz community, part of the government's plan to construct a 700-mile barricade on the U.S.-Mexico border.

The Department of Homeland Security has run into numerous legal obstacles in its attempt to construct the barrier in the Rio Grande Valley, making it one of the few places along the border where fencing plans remain incomplete.

In the last 18 months, DHS filed more than 230 land condemnation lawsuits in South Texas federal courts. Several of those cases, including one involving El Calaboz's Eloisa Tamez, are still unresolved. Tamez's court date was recently moved to October. Until then, her sliver of property will remain one of the few places in El Calaboz without fencing.

"(Homeland Security Secretary Janet) Napolitano and (President Barack) Obama have totally betrayed us," Tamez said. "Their opposition to the fence was just words. They haven't done a darn thing."

When she was governor of Arizona, Napolitano famously said, "Show me a 50-foot fence and I'll show you a 51-foot ladder." But since becoming secretary of DHS, she has done little to change the trajectory of the initial border fence plans.

"In terms of the wall itself, we are going to complete the sections that had already been begun and for which there already were appropriations," Napolitano said in a press briefing on Tuesday. "To the extent we request any other sections it will be part and parcel of a system that includes technology and manpower."

According to DHS spokesman Claude R. Knighten, contracts for all remaining segments of the barrier have already been awarded, including about 35 miles of fencing in the Brownsville-Harlingen area.

Eva Lambert still recoils at the sight of the fence in her backyard.

"It changes everything," she said. "We used to walk and ride bikes out there. ... Now we go outside and there's just that ugly wall."

On Thursday, a government official came by Lambert's house to confirm that she will eventually be compensated for her land. She sighed. It was a conversation she'd expected to have several months earlier, before steel beams lined the perimeter of her property.

http://www.themonitor.com/news/fence_24783___article.html/lambert_one.html

Tamez to be awarded by Texas Civil Rights Project

Brownsville Herald
October 1, 2008

By Kevin Sieff

In her crusade against the border fence, Eloisa Tamez has galvanized residents along the Rio Grande, filing seminal lawsuits against the federal government that have changed the very nature of the barrier's construction.

In the process, media outlets from around the world have converged on Tamez's tiny community of El Calaboz. Congressmen have walked the levee behind her home, stride for stride with the 73-year-old associate professor of nursing at the University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College.

On Friday, Tamez will receive the Henry B. Gonzalez award from the Texas Civil Rights Project, praising her for her willingness to stand up for the rights of border residents. The award is given annually to an individual who has shown personal courage in representing his or her community.
"This makes me energized to continue on," she said. "It's an affirmation."

Of the hundreds of South Texans who live along the path of the proposed border fence, Tamez has been by far the most vocal. She has pushed her neighbors to join her fight, but many, she said, have resigned themselves to the government's plans.

"They're fatalistic," she said. "They fear the government because of the history of oppression along the border."

Tamez's family inherited the property from a Spanish land grant in 1847. Of the grant's original 12,000 acres, Tamez now owns three. The government plans to build a 15- to 18-foot-tall fence through the middle of that property.

Tamez's greatest battle, she said, has been informing Valley residents in similar situations that "speaking up is not against the law."

It's a principle she first recognized at the age of 15, when she led the rancheria of El Calaboz in de-segregation of public schools in Cameron County. She would later serve for 17 years in the U.S. Army Reserves before settling into her current position at UTB-TSC.

She didn't expect that her career as an activist would take off after her 70th birthday, but when she heard about the government's border fence plans, she acted swiftly.

"I may end up losing the land," she said, "but I'm going to be there until my last breath."

http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/news/tamez_90465___article.html/government_border.html