Brownsville Herald
September 7, 2013
by Ty Johnson
There were nearly enough members of Congress in Port Isabel Saturday to start a new House subcommittee as five Border Caucus representatives met to discuss immigration reform with the public.
Rep. Filemon Vela, D-Brownsville, organized the event, which attracted more than 50 members of the public to a forum where residents peppered the congressmen with questions about border walls, paths to citizenship and the political battles holding back the nation from comprehensive reform.
The five Democrats fielded questions that centered mostly on the language of the bill the U.S. Senate passed earlier this summer.
That bill was amended many times in a manner that some Democrats said put too much emphasis on border security while not providing enough options for undocumented immigrants to become U.S. citizens.
Many at the forum wore T-shirts or carried signs in opposition to the proposed border fence, which is being completed across South Texas’ border with Mexico.
Rep. Henry Cuellar, who represents McAllen and Texas’ 28th District, called the wall “a 14th century solution to a 21st century problem,” likening it to the Great Wall of China and other failed attempts throughout history during which countries built physical barriers to keep intruders out.
Scott Nicol, a McAllen resident, made the case that the only thing the fence truly prevents from crossing is animals.
Nicol, the chairman of the Sierra Club Borderlands Team, said he was concerned about language in the Senate bill that he said allowed the federal government to suspend laws within 100 miles of the border.
Without environmental legislation to hold things in check, he was worried animals and plant life along the border would suffer.
“Why waive the Clean Water Act or the Endangered Species Act if you’re not planning on violating them?” he pointed out following the meeting.
The fence also creates issues from a property rights standpoint, he said, referring to examples throughout Brownsville where the fence cut through property.
During the forum, Cuellar pointed out the disproportion between the fence’s cost and its effectiveness.
Cuellar said the price per mile to use technology – cameras, sensors and the like – to secure the border cost about one-eighth of that to build a fence per mile.
He also noted the testimony of an expert in Washington who admitted the fence, on average, deterred those attempting to cross by about 15 seconds.
The public’s questions about the border fence led into a discussion about the so-called “trigger” in the Senate legislation that calls for increased border security before the implementation of a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.
Cuellar said that to the majority of Congress, border security means more boots on the ground and a fence, the construction of which began in 2006.
Vela, speaking after the meeting, said he felt that while border security and immigration reform were connected, they should be discussed and legislated separately.
“We of course need to be mindful of border security, but I don’t think those two need to be conditioned on each other,” he said.
What he does think should be factored into the immigration debate, however, is international commerce.
“(The debate) needs to include a discussion about the significant trade relationship we have with Mexico,” he said.
Vela has recently led a shift in strategy for House Republicans aiming to bring about immigration reform by moving away from discussions about divided families and deportations to talk about jobs and the impact the United States’ third-largest trading partner has on the economy.
Rep. Beto O’Rourke, who represents the El Paso area, said he felt those who would be swayed by moral arguments have already chosen their side, noting that Vela’s efforts to show how Mexico directly impacts states is the congressmen’s best bet to bring about immigration reform in the near future.
“It connects members of Congress with their interdependence on Mexico,” he said, noting that Democrats will try to sell immigration reform as the key to job growth for districts from Ohio and Tennessee to New York.
Rep. Raul Grijalva, who represents the Nogales, Ariz., area, said the dialogue concerning immigration needed to shift to jobs, noting that House Speaker John Boehner’s Ohio district alone depends on Mexico directly for about 125,000 jobs.
“It’s got to be about how it creates jobs,” he said, again referencing the need to change reformists’ approach to immigration.
The problem facing Congress now, though, is time, Rep. Gene Green of Houston said.
Noting that there are only 39 days left in this year’s session, Green suggested that budget talks, debt ceiling debates and a vote concerning military strikes against Syria have the potential to dominate discussions through December.
“We may end up spending two weeks on (Syria),” he said, pointing out how the debate on whether to intervene in the Middle East has taken congressional focus away from other matters. “It’s kind of sucked the wind out of other issues.”
Still, Vela and the Border Caucus have not given up on the push for reform this session, as the representatives and others will be in Grijalva’s district next weekend to again bring congressional representatives to the border.
Congress reconvenes Monday.
http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/news/local/article_7217123a-182d-11e3-a1af-0019bb30f31a.html
Showing posts with label Grijalva. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Grijalva. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
Monday, August 12, 2013
Rep. Raúl Grijalva: Strict Focus on Secure Border Fences Is 'Naive Thinking'
PBS News Hour
July 11, 2013
July 11, 2013
RAY SUAREZ: And we continue our look at immigration reform, as GOP leaders repeated for a second day that there's no clear consensus on a path forward for comprehensive legislation.
REP. JOHN BOEHNER, R-Ohio: We got a broken system that needs to be fixed.
RAY SUAREZ: House Speaker John Boehner insisted today the vast majority of House Republicans do want immigration reform, but on their terms.
REP. JOHN BOEHNER: Through all the conversations that have occurred from -- with my own members, with Democrat members, it's clear that dealing with this in bite-sized chunks that members can digest and the American people can digest is the smartest way to go.
RAY SUAREZ: In other words, the House will not take up the comprehensive bill that passed the Senate or anything like it.
That bill includes a path to citizenship for some 11 million people already in the country illegally. Democrats insist on including that step. House Republicans have focused instead on border security, but they're under growing pressure to relent on the citizenship question, and after a two-hour meeting yesterday, they displayed a conference divided.
REP. DARRELL ISSA, R-Calif.: There are three categories that those 11 million people go into, people that we all agree should remain here, people that we all agree should be removed, criminal aliens, people who have committed crimes and so on, and then people who may be in between.
REP. STEVE KING, R-Iowa: I made the point that anything that is legalization ends up in citizenship. And if that's the case, I'm opposed to it, because it destroys the rule of law. You could never reestablish the rule of law in this country, at least with regard to immigration, again.
RAY SUAREZ: This morning, the lead authors of the Senate bill, Democrat Chuck Schumer and Republican John McCain, talked hopefully, after meeting with President Obama at the White House.
SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER, D-N.Y.: Once you say doing nothing is not an option, you have to move in a direction to be bipartisan. And once you're bipartisan, you're going to get some progress that can get something done. So, again, it's not going to be the same exact thing as we believe, but, at the end of the day, hopefully, it will be close enough that we can come to an agreement.
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN, R-Ariz.: We are in no way bigfooting the members of the House of Representatives. We'd like to see legislation along the lines of ours, but we can work with them on different pieces of legislation. We want legislation that we can go to conference on, that we can get a majority vote in both houses.
RAY SUAREZ: House Republicans will now consider four separate bills, with a concentration on border security and enforcement of existing laws. None offers the possibility of citizenship.
But Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi warned today of the consequences of not acting quickly.
REP. NANCY PELOSI, D-Calif.: I think delay can create problems, but I'm ever optimistic. So I believe that we will have immigration reform for the simple reason that the American people want us to have it, and that, if it doesn't happen in this year, it's unlikely that it's going to happen in an election year.
RAY SUAREZ: Republicans have talked of voting on immigration before the month-long recess that begins in early August. But Boehner seemed to leave some wiggle room today.
REP. JOHN BOEHNER: I'm much more concerned about doing it right than I am of meeting some deadline.
RAY SUAREZ: If action on immigration slides to the fall, fiscal battles over the federal budget and debt ceiling could sideline the issue indefinitely.
And to the next in our immigration conversations.
Earlier this week, we talked with House Republicans Trey Gowdy of South Carolina and Raul Labrador of Idaho, along with Illinois Democrat Luis Gutierrez.
Tonight, another Democrat, Arizona's Raul Grijalva. He is a member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and serves as co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. I spoke with him yesterday.
Congressman Grijalva, welcome to the program.
REP. RAUL GRIJALVA, D-Ariz.: Thank you, Ray.
RAY SUAREZ: A lot of attention is being paid to whether Republicans will go for the Senate bill in the House, but I thought, since you're co-chair of the Progressive Caucus, we should ask you whether Democrats in the House are happy with the changes that were made to the bill to get it through the Senate?
REP. RAUL GRIJALVA: Well, I think a great deal of discomfort, some outright opposition to the surge, the Corker amendment that added $30 billion-plus, doubled everything that was already in the bill.
And, for many, for environmentalists and people that care about those public land laws, clean water, clean air, the waiving of all those laws along the border and public lands, people have difficulty with that. The issue of just militarizing the border to an extent that it becomes almost a combat zone will change the texture and the life in that community forever.
I think it's excessive. I think it's overkill. I think we need to define what security is. And I think it includes much more components than boots on the ground and drones and helicopters and sensors and towers and fences. It includes much more.
But the definition is very narrow. We will make an effort to try to expand that definition, but the bottom line, Ray, has been that a lot of the swallowing and bitterness of some of these additions by the Senate and even some of the components that were in the Senate bill before Corker were being swallowed because of the importance of a path to citizenship.
RAY SUAREZ: So, you call it a bitter pill to swallow. Does it still have your vote as written if it came to the House floor?
REP. RAUL GRIJALVA: If it came to the House floor and there were -- at this point, I have a great deal of discomfort with it.
I feel that I have -- I have been reluctant to state what I would do in that situation, so that we wouldn't marginalize the opportunity to try to improve it.
But a lot will depend on what the Republicans do here. If we start to redefine the path, then the only sole reason for any compromise or swallowing any of this has been the millions of people that we would add comfort and protection to. If that starts to leave, then, quite frankly, there's no compromise.
RAY SUAREZ: Is the path to citizenship, some path to citizenship, a necessary precondition for this bill or a version of it to get your vote?
REP. RAUL GRIJALVA: My vote and I think a great number of Democrats.
The sentiment I'm giving you, Ray, about we don't like this part, we don't like that part is pretty prevalent, but the golden opportunity to do something about these families -- and I represent 350 miles of border communities, Nogales, San Luis, Somerton, all those communities, and constantly every day dealing with those families, the deportations, the split families, children left in foster care because their parents are gone.
I mean, the human toll sometimes makes you makes you believe that that has to be the ultimate goal. And if that path isn't there, then what are we settling for?
RAY SUAREZ: Earlier in the week, Congressman Trey Gowdy, your Republican colleague from South Carolina, was on this program.
REP. RAUL GRIJALVA: Right.
RAY SUAREZ: And he said the path to citizenship is not as important to him as securing the border right now, because unless you secure the border, you end up back in the same problem we're in now, with newly legalized residents and more people coming over the border trying to achieve that status.
How do you reply to that?
REP. RAUL GRIJALVA: I think that within the Senate bill, there's E-Verify that's going to make a demand of employers that people must have the proper documentation. Otherwise, the penalties on those employers that hire unauthorized people is going to be huge.
Beyond that, you know, people are coming out of the shadows, declaring themselves, starting that process, family unification, much -- 40 percent of the people that are right now in this country overstayed their work visas or overstayed their visas.
And as you seal this border and as you try to feel that the only way you can provide immigration reform is by zero-tolerance, secure border fences, double links, Border Patrol agents shoulder to shoulder, that's naive thinking. That's not the reality of the border.
And the reality of the economy of this nation and this world, the effect of poverty, there's root causes here. And merely building the fences, symbolism, it's pandering and good political rhetoric, but it is not going to fix or accommodate the issue that we're dealing with here, which is the people that are here already and what do you do about them? He doesn't answer that question.
And his idea of -- his idea of keeping people here with a provisional legal status is something that's so un-American, to have a second class of workers and people in this country with no access to citizenship and, more importantly, with a different set of rights and protections than the rest of us have.
I don't think that's American. I don't think -- we have never been about that. And I think he misses the point on that value. But securing the border, from somebody from a state that doesn't have to deal with it on a daily basis, it's not just overreach. I think it's oversimplification.
RAY SUAREZ: So very, very quickly, before we go, Congressman, is there a compromise floating out there that will leave people like Congressman Gowdy satisfied about the border and its security and leave the members of your Progressive Caucus satisfied that you have done well by the people who are here struggling, trying to get legal status?
REP. RAUL GRIJALVA: Yes, I think a path has to be integral, redefining what you mean by security, so that we make it comprehensive, so that the issues that the gentleman from South Carolina is concerned about, we use -- part of security has to be economic development.
Six million jobs in this country depend on direct trade import and export from Mexico, in the country. And so this is about jobs. This is about a vitality that we need in the borderlands in terms of an economy. We need to redefine that.
I think that's the compromise, that you expand the definition of security from the simpleton stuff that we're talking about right now, fences and boots, to the more complex and lasting solutions, which is the economic development, good ports of entries, increased trade, increased visitorship.
It's a win-win for everybody. And if there was an opportunity to sit down and have a rational discussion without posturing, I think that's a potentially good compromise.
RAY SUAREZ: Congressman Raul Grijalva of Arizona, thanks for joining us, sir.
REP. RAUL GRIJALVA: Thank you, Ray. Appreciate it.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/july-dec13/immigration_07-11.html
REP. JOHN BOEHNER, R-Ohio: We got a broken system that needs to be fixed.
RAY SUAREZ: House Speaker John Boehner insisted today the vast majority of House Republicans do want immigration reform, but on their terms.
REP. JOHN BOEHNER: Through all the conversations that have occurred from -- with my own members, with Democrat members, it's clear that dealing with this in bite-sized chunks that members can digest and the American people can digest is the smartest way to go.
RAY SUAREZ: In other words, the House will not take up the comprehensive bill that passed the Senate or anything like it.
That bill includes a path to citizenship for some 11 million people already in the country illegally. Democrats insist on including that step. House Republicans have focused instead on border security, but they're under growing pressure to relent on the citizenship question, and after a two-hour meeting yesterday, they displayed a conference divided.
REP. DARRELL ISSA, R-Calif.: There are three categories that those 11 million people go into, people that we all agree should remain here, people that we all agree should be removed, criminal aliens, people who have committed crimes and so on, and then people who may be in between.
REP. STEVE KING, R-Iowa: I made the point that anything that is legalization ends up in citizenship. And if that's the case, I'm opposed to it, because it destroys the rule of law. You could never reestablish the rule of law in this country, at least with regard to immigration, again.
RAY SUAREZ: This morning, the lead authors of the Senate bill, Democrat Chuck Schumer and Republican John McCain, talked hopefully, after meeting with President Obama at the White House.
SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER, D-N.Y.: Once you say doing nothing is not an option, you have to move in a direction to be bipartisan. And once you're bipartisan, you're going to get some progress that can get something done. So, again, it's not going to be the same exact thing as we believe, but, at the end of the day, hopefully, it will be close enough that we can come to an agreement.
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN, R-Ariz.: We are in no way bigfooting the members of the House of Representatives. We'd like to see legislation along the lines of ours, but we can work with them on different pieces of legislation. We want legislation that we can go to conference on, that we can get a majority vote in both houses.
RAY SUAREZ: House Republicans will now consider four separate bills, with a concentration on border security and enforcement of existing laws. None offers the possibility of citizenship.
But Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi warned today of the consequences of not acting quickly.
REP. NANCY PELOSI, D-Calif.: I think delay can create problems, but I'm ever optimistic. So I believe that we will have immigration reform for the simple reason that the American people want us to have it, and that, if it doesn't happen in this year, it's unlikely that it's going to happen in an election year.
RAY SUAREZ: Republicans have talked of voting on immigration before the month-long recess that begins in early August. But Boehner seemed to leave some wiggle room today.
REP. JOHN BOEHNER: I'm much more concerned about doing it right than I am of meeting some deadline.
RAY SUAREZ: If action on immigration slides to the fall, fiscal battles over the federal budget and debt ceiling could sideline the issue indefinitely.
And to the next in our immigration conversations.
Earlier this week, we talked with House Republicans Trey Gowdy of South Carolina and Raul Labrador of Idaho, along with Illinois Democrat Luis Gutierrez.
Tonight, another Democrat, Arizona's Raul Grijalva. He is a member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and serves as co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. I spoke with him yesterday.
Congressman Grijalva, welcome to the program.
REP. RAUL GRIJALVA, D-Ariz.: Thank you, Ray.
RAY SUAREZ: A lot of attention is being paid to whether Republicans will go for the Senate bill in the House, but I thought, since you're co-chair of the Progressive Caucus, we should ask you whether Democrats in the House are happy with the changes that were made to the bill to get it through the Senate?
REP. RAUL GRIJALVA: Well, I think a great deal of discomfort, some outright opposition to the surge, the Corker amendment that added $30 billion-plus, doubled everything that was already in the bill.
And, for many, for environmentalists and people that care about those public land laws, clean water, clean air, the waiving of all those laws along the border and public lands, people have difficulty with that. The issue of just militarizing the border to an extent that it becomes almost a combat zone will change the texture and the life in that community forever.
I think it's excessive. I think it's overkill. I think we need to define what security is. And I think it includes much more components than boots on the ground and drones and helicopters and sensors and towers and fences. It includes much more.
But the definition is very narrow. We will make an effort to try to expand that definition, but the bottom line, Ray, has been that a lot of the swallowing and bitterness of some of these additions by the Senate and even some of the components that were in the Senate bill before Corker were being swallowed because of the importance of a path to citizenship.
RAY SUAREZ: So, you call it a bitter pill to swallow. Does it still have your vote as written if it came to the House floor?
REP. RAUL GRIJALVA: If it came to the House floor and there were -- at this point, I have a great deal of discomfort with it.
I feel that I have -- I have been reluctant to state what I would do in that situation, so that we wouldn't marginalize the opportunity to try to improve it.
But a lot will depend on what the Republicans do here. If we start to redefine the path, then the only sole reason for any compromise or swallowing any of this has been the millions of people that we would add comfort and protection to. If that starts to leave, then, quite frankly, there's no compromise.
RAY SUAREZ: Is the path to citizenship, some path to citizenship, a necessary precondition for this bill or a version of it to get your vote?
REP. RAUL GRIJALVA: My vote and I think a great number of Democrats.
The sentiment I'm giving you, Ray, about we don't like this part, we don't like that part is pretty prevalent, but the golden opportunity to do something about these families -- and I represent 350 miles of border communities, Nogales, San Luis, Somerton, all those communities, and constantly every day dealing with those families, the deportations, the split families, children left in foster care because their parents are gone.
I mean, the human toll sometimes makes you makes you believe that that has to be the ultimate goal. And if that path isn't there, then what are we settling for?
RAY SUAREZ: Earlier in the week, Congressman Trey Gowdy, your Republican colleague from South Carolina, was on this program.
REP. RAUL GRIJALVA: Right.
RAY SUAREZ: And he said the path to citizenship is not as important to him as securing the border right now, because unless you secure the border, you end up back in the same problem we're in now, with newly legalized residents and more people coming over the border trying to achieve that status.
How do you reply to that?
REP. RAUL GRIJALVA: I think that within the Senate bill, there's E-Verify that's going to make a demand of employers that people must have the proper documentation. Otherwise, the penalties on those employers that hire unauthorized people is going to be huge.
Beyond that, you know, people are coming out of the shadows, declaring themselves, starting that process, family unification, much -- 40 percent of the people that are right now in this country overstayed their work visas or overstayed their visas.
And as you seal this border and as you try to feel that the only way you can provide immigration reform is by zero-tolerance, secure border fences, double links, Border Patrol agents shoulder to shoulder, that's naive thinking. That's not the reality of the border.
And the reality of the economy of this nation and this world, the effect of poverty, there's root causes here. And merely building the fences, symbolism, it's pandering and good political rhetoric, but it is not going to fix or accommodate the issue that we're dealing with here, which is the people that are here already and what do you do about them? He doesn't answer that question.
And his idea of -- his idea of keeping people here with a provisional legal status is something that's so un-American, to have a second class of workers and people in this country with no access to citizenship and, more importantly, with a different set of rights and protections than the rest of us have.
I don't think that's American. I don't think -- we have never been about that. And I think he misses the point on that value. But securing the border, from somebody from a state that doesn't have to deal with it on a daily basis, it's not just overreach. I think it's oversimplification.
RAY SUAREZ: So very, very quickly, before we go, Congressman, is there a compromise floating out there that will leave people like Congressman Gowdy satisfied about the border and its security and leave the members of your Progressive Caucus satisfied that you have done well by the people who are here struggling, trying to get legal status?
REP. RAUL GRIJALVA: Yes, I think a path has to be integral, redefining what you mean by security, so that we make it comprehensive, so that the issues that the gentleman from South Carolina is concerned about, we use -- part of security has to be economic development.
Six million jobs in this country depend on direct trade import and export from Mexico, in the country. And so this is about jobs. This is about a vitality that we need in the borderlands in terms of an economy. We need to redefine that.
I think that's the compromise, that you expand the definition of security from the simpleton stuff that we're talking about right now, fences and boots, to the more complex and lasting solutions, which is the economic development, good ports of entries, increased trade, increased visitorship.
It's a win-win for everybody. And if there was an opportunity to sit down and have a rational discussion without posturing, I think that's a potentially good compromise.
RAY SUAREZ: Congressman Raul Grijalva of Arizona, thanks for joining us, sir.
REP. RAUL GRIJALVA: Thank you, Ray. Appreciate it.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/july-dec13/immigration_07-11.html
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Critics blast proposal while supporters decry limitations
Nogales International / Cronkite News
July 12, 2011
by Matthew Trotter
A bill that would grant the Department of Homeland Security unprecedented access to federal lands near the border was sharply criticized Friday for giving the department unchecked authority.
The National Security and Federal Lands Protection Act would let DHS waive 36 environmental-protection laws for patrol activities within 100 miles of U.S. borders.
Opponents of the legislation went so far as to call the bill, HR 1505, “particularly stupid” during Friday’s hearing of the House Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands. They called it overly broad and said it opened the door for DHS to completely disregard environmental-protection laws.
“1505 may succeed in decreasing immigration, but only because the water, air and environments of border communities will be so degraded, no one will want to come here,” said Rep. Raul Grijalva, a Democrat who represents Nogales and Rio Rico in Congress.
John Leshy, a law professor at the University of California, Hastings, testified that the legislation would make DHS “immune from review by the courts, except for constitutional claims.”
Supporters of the bill, however, said the current setup — a memorandum of understanding between DHS and federal land-management agencies — makes it impossible for Border Patrol to do its job.
“There’s a problem here in that Border Patrol is being restricted,” said Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, the bill’s sponsor. “They are not the problem.”
The memorandum of understanding requires Border Patrol officials to get permission from land-management agencies before conducting operations on federal lands, from maintaining roads to installing surveillance systems.
Claude Guyant, founder of the National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers, said the current system is an unnecessary distraction.
“Border Patrol’s focus must be on preventing illegal entry,” said Guyant.
While Border Patrol agents have the discretion to bend some rules in emergency situations, they typically have to comply with all laws affecting an area they want to access. In designated wilderness areas, for example, that would mean traveling only on foot or horseback.
Kim Thorsen, an Interior Department law enforcement official, testified that Border Patrol agents do have the latitude to do their jobs under the current setup.
“There is absolutely no restriction for Border Patrol to pursue anyone anywhere on federal lands,” said Thorsen, the Interior deputy assistant secretary for law enforcement, security and emergency management.
In April, the Government Accountability Office reported the agreement had its flaws and the agencies were not always in full cooperation, but that most of the supervising officers surveyed said federal land laws were not affecting their areas’ security.
But Gary Thrasher, a veterinarian and rancher from Hereford, Ariz., told the committee he’s witnessed the impact of federal land laws on border security.
Thrasher, an Arizona Cattle Growers Association board member, said that more than once he’s had immigrants “crawl through the cat door” to spend the night in his locked barn.
Republicans on the committee said the bill was an attempt at keeping citizens like Thrasher safe, not a way of granting DHS unlimited power.
“All we’re trying to do is protect our nation, protect the people of the United States,” said Rep. Raul Labrador, R-Idaho.
Leshy — referencing the unchecked power of the British king who moved the U.S. to declare its independence — said those who oppose the bill are also trying to protect the people.
“1505 would make DHS the George III of our age,” he said.
http://www.nogalesinternational.com/articles/2011/07/12/news/doc4e1c6544b68f1146229745.txt
July 12, 2011
by Matthew Trotter
A bill that would grant the Department of Homeland Security unprecedented access to federal lands near the border was sharply criticized Friday for giving the department unchecked authority.
The National Security and Federal Lands Protection Act would let DHS waive 36 environmental-protection laws for patrol activities within 100 miles of U.S. borders.
Opponents of the legislation went so far as to call the bill, HR 1505, “particularly stupid” during Friday’s hearing of the House Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands. They called it overly broad and said it opened the door for DHS to completely disregard environmental-protection laws.
“1505 may succeed in decreasing immigration, but only because the water, air and environments of border communities will be so degraded, no one will want to come here,” said Rep. Raul Grijalva, a Democrat who represents Nogales and Rio Rico in Congress.
John Leshy, a law professor at the University of California, Hastings, testified that the legislation would make DHS “immune from review by the courts, except for constitutional claims.”
Supporters of the bill, however, said the current setup — a memorandum of understanding between DHS and federal land-management agencies — makes it impossible for Border Patrol to do its job.
“There’s a problem here in that Border Patrol is being restricted,” said Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, the bill’s sponsor. “They are not the problem.”
The memorandum of understanding requires Border Patrol officials to get permission from land-management agencies before conducting operations on federal lands, from maintaining roads to installing surveillance systems.
Claude Guyant, founder of the National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers, said the current system is an unnecessary distraction.
“Border Patrol’s focus must be on preventing illegal entry,” said Guyant.
While Border Patrol agents have the discretion to bend some rules in emergency situations, they typically have to comply with all laws affecting an area they want to access. In designated wilderness areas, for example, that would mean traveling only on foot or horseback.
Kim Thorsen, an Interior Department law enforcement official, testified that Border Patrol agents do have the latitude to do their jobs under the current setup.
“There is absolutely no restriction for Border Patrol to pursue anyone anywhere on federal lands,” said Thorsen, the Interior deputy assistant secretary for law enforcement, security and emergency management.
In April, the Government Accountability Office reported the agreement had its flaws and the agencies were not always in full cooperation, but that most of the supervising officers surveyed said federal land laws were not affecting their areas’ security.
But Gary Thrasher, a veterinarian and rancher from Hereford, Ariz., told the committee he’s witnessed the impact of federal land laws on border security.
Thrasher, an Arizona Cattle Growers Association board member, said that more than once he’s had immigrants “crawl through the cat door” to spend the night in his locked barn.
Republicans on the committee said the bill was an attempt at keeping citizens like Thrasher safe, not a way of granting DHS unlimited power.
“All we’re trying to do is protect our nation, protect the people of the United States,” said Rep. Raul Labrador, R-Idaho.
Leshy — referencing the unchecked power of the British king who moved the U.S. to declare its independence — said those who oppose the bill are also trying to protect the people.
“1505 would make DHS the George III of our age,” he said.
http://www.nogalesinternational.com/articles/2011/07/12/news/doc4e1c6544b68f1146229745.txt
Monday, June 27, 2011
Barrier Rebuilt: As a new wall is built through Nogales, well-known art is being relocated or destroyed
Tucson Weekly
June 23, 2011
by Margaret Regan
A man named Enrique was packing up his hot dog cart on Calle Internacional in Nogales, Sonora, late one recent hot afternoon.
Asked his opinion of the new border wall across the street, he looked up appraisingly at the 18-foot steel posts looming above him.
"It's más beautiful," he said, speaking in the Spanglish of the borderlands. Prettier than the old wall.
Not everyone agreed. At the bus stop down the street, an older man shrugged. The two walls were "igual." he said. Equally ugly.
The old landing-mat wall, covered with graffiti and grassroots murals, has been coming down for months, removed piece by piece by Granite Construction, a firm contracted by the Border Patrol. The graffiti has vanished along with the wall, but some of the wall's best-known artworks have been rescued.
The acclaimed Paseo de Humanidad, a cavalcade of painted metal figures, was moved last year, much of it to a gallery in Tubac. A painted mural of Chiapas was rescued just last week, after a last-minute campaign by supporters, and returned to artist Guadalupe Serrano.
The corrugated panels are rapidly being replaced by the towering new poles, which rise as high as 30 feet in some places, says Steve Passement, a Border Patrol supervising agent. The massive poles, 6 inches square and filled with concrete, descend 6 feet down into the earth. The $11.6 million project should be finished sometime in July, and when it's done will slice through 2.77 miles of Ambos Nogales.
The beauty of the new wall, from the Border Patrol perspective, is that it's see-through. The heavy posts are separated by four inches of open air, too small for a body to slip through, but big enough for la migra to look south into Mexico.
"Our agents need to be aware of what's on the other side," Passement said. "There's always the chance of being rocked"—hit by rocks thrown from the other side. "The new (wall) definitely gives agents an awareness."
But the open spaces cue in potential wall-crossers as well. As Enrique closed up his cart and prepared to head home, three likely migrants ambled down the street, equipped with telltale border-crosser backpacks. They could see right through the new posts to a Border Patrol agent stationed on the other side. They laughed when they saw him pacing just yards from the barricade they intended to cross, then turned and walked off in another direction.
The old wall was flimsier—coyotes routinely used torches to blast holes in its thin metal skin—but it was opaque. Neither crossers nor agents could see their opponents on the other side.
A rough patchwork of used helicopter-landing pads, it was hastily cobbled together in the 1990s when immigration was beginning to surge into Arizona. The Army had discarded the flats after using them in the Persian Gulf and in the jungles of Vietnam, and was only too happy to turn them over to the Border Patrol free of charge.
Rising up 12 to 15 feet—miniature compared to the new wall—the landing-mat fence was colored the purples and rusts of a bruise. It was unapologetically ugly, and its battle history provided an uncomfortable metaphor for an international border between two nations at peace.
But it had at least one aesthetic virtue: It was flat, and it was big, a perfect canvas for grassroots art of all kinds.
Naturally, there was plenty of graffiti, mostly consisting of angry rants against the United States. As of last week, one bit still survived, on a section of the old wall still up east of the DeConcini Port of Entry. Painted in white against red, it read: Mundo sin fronteras ya basta, which loosely translates as: "A world without borders. Enough walls already."
On the west side of the port, where much of the old wall has already been replaced, white crosses memorialized the deaths of migrants. (Coalición de Derechos Humanos counts 2,192 known deaths in Southern Arizona in the last 11 years.) Once nailed to the landing flats, the crosses are gone now.
Paseo de Humanidad was west of the crosses. An international project completed in 2004, the aluminum artwork was a collaboration between Serrano; the late Alberto Morackis of Taller Yonke in Nogales, Sonora; and Alfred Quiroz, artist and art professor in Tucson.
The Mexican team constructed colored figures of migrants and migra in the Arizona desert, offering warnings to would-be border-crossers of the dangers ahead. Quiroz added milagros, heads and hearts that were like prayers in aluminum. (See "Artistic Warning," May 13, 2004.)
Paseo was taken to safety long before the arrival of the demo crew the week of June 6. Since last November, the Serrano-Morackis portions have been on view in the sculpture garden at K. Newby Gallery in Tubac. Serrano said last week he's hoping to take it down by Wednesday, June 22, and store it in Rio Rico pending its next exhibition.
"I got an invitation to exhibit it at the UA in November, but it's not definite yet," Serrano wrote in Spanish in an e-mail. Quiroz's milagros are back in Tucson with their maker, he added.
The Chiapas mural had a much narrower escape. Its fate was still in doubt as late as early last week, when the wrecking machines were scheduled to knock down the portions of the old wall clinging to a steep hill along Calle Internacional.
A community group, led by Serrano and Morackis, had painted the mural directly onto the border wall in 2005, Serrano said. Officially called "Vida y sueños de la cañada perla¨ ("Life and Dreams of the Pearl Stream") and nicknamed the "Mural de Taniperla," it depicted indigenous people living an idyllic traditional life in the mountains of Chiapas. It was a copy of a 1998 work painted by Sergio Valdez and numerous Tzeltal Indians in embattled Chiapas, where the Zapatistas were in a standoff with the Mexican army. The army invaded the town and destroyed the original, Serrano said, and Valdez was jailed for six months.
To show their support for the people of Chiapas, artists around the world painted identical murals on their own hometown walls. The Nogales version was a community project, painted by people on both sides of the border, Serrano said.
Last week, a last-minute campaign by Serrano; Dan Millis, of the Sierra Club's Borderlands Campaign; Congressman Raúl Grijalva; Susannah Castro, of the Tubac Center for the Arts; Bob Phillips, of the Santa Cruz Community Foundation; and his counterpart in Nogales, Sonora, Alma Cota de Yanez, of Fundación del Empresariado Sonorense (FESAC), won the mural a reprieve.
"The Border Patrol was cooperative," Phillips said.
The Border Patrol "reached out to Granite," Border Patrol spokesman Steve Adkison said, and gave the construction company instructions to take down the panels carefully and turn them over to the artists. Early on June 16, the mural's 30 panels were gently felled. The pieces were hauled to Serrano's studio, where they are being held in safekeeping until a new location can be found.
It's unclear whether the new wall can accommodate art. Now that the agency has a clear view through the barrier, Agent Passement said, "We won't permit anyone to block it or hang things on it."
Crosses and metal sculptures might be out, but it's not hard to imagine artists painting the 6-inch wide posts, trailing designs across the openings.
In any case, enterprising families have already found a way to take advantage of the see-through new wall. A few days before Father's Day, several families were having a cross-border visit in a quiet district east of the port of entry. The mothers and children were on the Mexican side of the wall, and the dads were on the American.
One little girl had dressed up in pink to see her father. She sat by her mother, her legs dangling into the ditch created by the new wall. Her parents leaned into the poles, and her father listened intently as her mother spoke.
A few feet away, a little boy of about 5 or 6 had brought along a school paper—a drawing, perhaps?—to give to his father. The child was too small to push the paper into the United States, so his father thrust his own hand between the bars, and reached toward his child in Mexico.
http://www.tucsonweekly.com/tucson/barrier-rebuilt/Content?oid=3028495
June 23, 2011
by Margaret Regan
A man named Enrique was packing up his hot dog cart on Calle Internacional in Nogales, Sonora, late one recent hot afternoon.
Asked his opinion of the new border wall across the street, he looked up appraisingly at the 18-foot steel posts looming above him.
"It's más beautiful," he said, speaking in the Spanglish of the borderlands. Prettier than the old wall.
Not everyone agreed. At the bus stop down the street, an older man shrugged. The two walls were "igual." he said. Equally ugly.
The old landing-mat wall, covered with graffiti and grassroots murals, has been coming down for months, removed piece by piece by Granite Construction, a firm contracted by the Border Patrol. The graffiti has vanished along with the wall, but some of the wall's best-known artworks have been rescued.
The acclaimed Paseo de Humanidad, a cavalcade of painted metal figures, was moved last year, much of it to a gallery in Tubac. A painted mural of Chiapas was rescued just last week, after a last-minute campaign by supporters, and returned to artist Guadalupe Serrano.
The corrugated panels are rapidly being replaced by the towering new poles, which rise as high as 30 feet in some places, says Steve Passement, a Border Patrol supervising agent. The massive poles, 6 inches square and filled with concrete, descend 6 feet down into the earth. The $11.6 million project should be finished sometime in July, and when it's done will slice through 2.77 miles of Ambos Nogales.
The beauty of the new wall, from the Border Patrol perspective, is that it's see-through. The heavy posts are separated by four inches of open air, too small for a body to slip through, but big enough for la migra to look south into Mexico.
"Our agents need to be aware of what's on the other side," Passement said. "There's always the chance of being rocked"—hit by rocks thrown from the other side. "The new (wall) definitely gives agents an awareness."
But the open spaces cue in potential wall-crossers as well. As Enrique closed up his cart and prepared to head home, three likely migrants ambled down the street, equipped with telltale border-crosser backpacks. They could see right through the new posts to a Border Patrol agent stationed on the other side. They laughed when they saw him pacing just yards from the barricade they intended to cross, then turned and walked off in another direction.
The old wall was flimsier—coyotes routinely used torches to blast holes in its thin metal skin—but it was opaque. Neither crossers nor agents could see their opponents on the other side.
A rough patchwork of used helicopter-landing pads, it was hastily cobbled together in the 1990s when immigration was beginning to surge into Arizona. The Army had discarded the flats after using them in the Persian Gulf and in the jungles of Vietnam, and was only too happy to turn them over to the Border Patrol free of charge.
Rising up 12 to 15 feet—miniature compared to the new wall—the landing-mat fence was colored the purples and rusts of a bruise. It was unapologetically ugly, and its battle history provided an uncomfortable metaphor for an international border between two nations at peace.
But it had at least one aesthetic virtue: It was flat, and it was big, a perfect canvas for grassroots art of all kinds.
Naturally, there was plenty of graffiti, mostly consisting of angry rants against the United States. As of last week, one bit still survived, on a section of the old wall still up east of the DeConcini Port of Entry. Painted in white against red, it read: Mundo sin fronteras ya basta, which loosely translates as: "A world without borders. Enough walls already."
On the west side of the port, where much of the old wall has already been replaced, white crosses memorialized the deaths of migrants. (Coalición de Derechos Humanos counts 2,192 known deaths in Southern Arizona in the last 11 years.) Once nailed to the landing flats, the crosses are gone now.
Paseo de Humanidad was west of the crosses. An international project completed in 2004, the aluminum artwork was a collaboration between Serrano; the late Alberto Morackis of Taller Yonke in Nogales, Sonora; and Alfred Quiroz, artist and art professor in Tucson.
The Mexican team constructed colored figures of migrants and migra in the Arizona desert, offering warnings to would-be border-crossers of the dangers ahead. Quiroz added milagros, heads and hearts that were like prayers in aluminum. (See "Artistic Warning," May 13, 2004.)
Paseo was taken to safety long before the arrival of the demo crew the week of June 6. Since last November, the Serrano-Morackis portions have been on view in the sculpture garden at K. Newby Gallery in Tubac. Serrano said last week he's hoping to take it down by Wednesday, June 22, and store it in Rio Rico pending its next exhibition.
"I got an invitation to exhibit it at the UA in November, but it's not definite yet," Serrano wrote in Spanish in an e-mail. Quiroz's milagros are back in Tucson with their maker, he added.
The Chiapas mural had a much narrower escape. Its fate was still in doubt as late as early last week, when the wrecking machines were scheduled to knock down the portions of the old wall clinging to a steep hill along Calle Internacional.
A community group, led by Serrano and Morackis, had painted the mural directly onto the border wall in 2005, Serrano said. Officially called "Vida y sueños de la cañada perla¨ ("Life and Dreams of the Pearl Stream") and nicknamed the "Mural de Taniperla," it depicted indigenous people living an idyllic traditional life in the mountains of Chiapas. It was a copy of a 1998 work painted by Sergio Valdez and numerous Tzeltal Indians in embattled Chiapas, where the Zapatistas were in a standoff with the Mexican army. The army invaded the town and destroyed the original, Serrano said, and Valdez was jailed for six months.
To show their support for the people of Chiapas, artists around the world painted identical murals on their own hometown walls. The Nogales version was a community project, painted by people on both sides of the border, Serrano said.
Last week, a last-minute campaign by Serrano; Dan Millis, of the Sierra Club's Borderlands Campaign; Congressman Raúl Grijalva; Susannah Castro, of the Tubac Center for the Arts; Bob Phillips, of the Santa Cruz Community Foundation; and his counterpart in Nogales, Sonora, Alma Cota de Yanez, of Fundación del Empresariado Sonorense (FESAC), won the mural a reprieve.
"The Border Patrol was cooperative," Phillips said.
The Border Patrol "reached out to Granite," Border Patrol spokesman Steve Adkison said, and gave the construction company instructions to take down the panels carefully and turn them over to the artists. Early on June 16, the mural's 30 panels were gently felled. The pieces were hauled to Serrano's studio, where they are being held in safekeeping until a new location can be found.
It's unclear whether the new wall can accommodate art. Now that the agency has a clear view through the barrier, Agent Passement said, "We won't permit anyone to block it or hang things on it."
Crosses and metal sculptures might be out, but it's not hard to imagine artists painting the 6-inch wide posts, trailing designs across the openings.
In any case, enterprising families have already found a way to take advantage of the see-through new wall. A few days before Father's Day, several families were having a cross-border visit in a quiet district east of the port of entry. The mothers and children were on the Mexican side of the wall, and the dads were on the American.
One little girl had dressed up in pink to see her father. She sat by her mother, her legs dangling into the ditch created by the new wall. Her parents leaned into the poles, and her father listened intently as her mother spoke.
A few feet away, a little boy of about 5 or 6 had brought along a school paper—a drawing, perhaps?—to give to his father. The child was too small to push the paper into the United States, so his father thrust his own hand between the bars, and reached toward his child in Mexico.
http://www.tucsonweekly.com/tucson/barrier-rebuilt/Content?oid=3028495
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Binational effort helps rescue border fence mural
Nogales International
June 21, 2011
by Jonathan Clark
A community mural painted on the border wall separating the U.S. and Mexico was saved from the scrap heap last week through a binational effort, and an artist who was integral to its creation and salvation says he hopes the artwork, which represents popular resistance, will one day rise again at its original location.
The 60-foot-long mural, titled “Vida y Sueños de la Cañada Perla,” or “Life and Dreams of the Perla Ravine,” was painted by people from both sides of the border in 2005 on the Sonoran face of the landing-mat fence running through Ambos Nogales, a few hundred yards west of the DeConcini port.
It’s a replica of a mural painted in 1998 by Tzetzal Indians on the façade of the community center of Taniperla, Chiapas to represent their lives and dreams after declaring themselves part of an autonomous Zapatista revolutionary municipality. However, on April 11, 1998, a day after the mural and the autonomous municipality were inaugurated, the Mexican Army retook control of the town, destroyed the mural and jailed the man who had directed its creation, university professor Sergio Valdez.
Nogales, Sonora-based artist Guadalupe Serrano, who along with his creative partner Alberto Morackis brought Valdez to the border city for the re-creation project in 2005, said that after U.S. crews replacing the 2.8-mile-long landing-mat fence with a taller, stronger barrier reached the downtown area last month, city officials warned him that the “Vida y Sueños” replica might also be destroyed.
At the same time, he said, he learned that wheels had also begun to turn in Arizona in an effort to save the mural.
“What happened was that in Tucson, there’s an organization called the Sierra Club, and a guy from that organization named Dan Millis got in touch with Congressman Raul Grijalva,” Serrano said.
In a letter dated June 8, Millis, along with Kim Roseman of the K. Newby Gallery in Tubac, Susannah Castro of the Tubac Center of the Arts and Bob Phillips of the Santa Cruz Community Foundation, urged Grijalva to investigate the status of “Vida y Sueños” and other nearby fence art and iconic graffiti, “and act to ensure that these cultural resources are protected for future generations.”
Grijalva responded by dispatching staffer Ruben Reyes to coordinate with the Border Patrol (a Grijalva spokesman said the agency was “very cooperative”), who then worked with contractor Granite Construction to arrange a safe takedown and handover of the mural panels to Serrano.
Early last Thursday, Serrano and members of his art collective Taller Yonke (Junk Studio) showed up at the border fence with a trailer and some tools to dismantle and haul off the mural panels after a Granite Construction crane lifted them off their footing in the United States and laid them on the ground in Mexico.
“We saved the whole mural,” Serrano said. “There were just two pieces at the end that were already gone.”
The other nearby iconography – a mural depicting a loteria card version of the floating eye pyramid, an array of white crosses representing migrant deaths and painted slogans including “Fronteras: Cicatrices en la tierra” (“Borders: Scars on the Earth”) – were not so lucky.
“Those things were in another area, and by the time we realized what was happening, ‘La Migra’ had taken them away,” Serrano said.
There was another important object, not attached to the fence but mounted directly in front of it, that Serrano was able to save: a bust of his collaborator and fellow Taller Yonke founder Morackis, who died in December 2008 from pneumonia, two days short of his 50th birthday.
Border art
Serrano and Morackis began using the Nogales landing-mat fence as a forum for socially and politically conscious art in 2003 when they unveiled “Border Dynamics,” a steel-and-resin piece depicting four, 14-foot human figures pushing against the wall. The artists initially hoped to place the figures on both sides of the fence, but the Border Patrol nixed the plan on the U.S. side, citing security concerns.
The University of Arizona later purchased “Border Dynamics” and displayed it on the campus mall in Tucson before moving it to an area next to the school’s Harvill building.
In March 2004, the artists mounted another provocative piece on the south side of the fence: a series of aluminum human figures and symbols called “Paseo de Humanidad,” or “Parade of Humanity.” Created in collaboration with Tucson-based artist Alfred J. Quiroz, the work represented the suffering of Mexican migrants as they traveled to and from the United States.
But as Serrano noted, “Border Dymanics” and “Paseo de Humanidad” were temporary exhibits at the Nogales fence. The “Vida y Sueños” mural was permanently affixed to it.
The idea for the mural project, he said, came when he met Valdez during a trip to Mexico City. Serrano knew the history of the original mural, and how communities from South America to Europe had re-created it in public spaces as a show of solidarity and resistance. So he asked Valdez to help with a re-creation on the border wall in Nogales, “for what the mural means and what the wall represents,” he said.
Aided by a patron in Hermosillo and an art collective called La Linea, Serrano and Morackis invited people from across Sonora and Southern Arizona to paint the mural in the spring of 2005.
“The only thing we did was coordinate the project,” Serrano said. “We didn’t participate in the painting – all we really did was get the paint ready and coordinate.”
The centerpiece of the colorful painting is a depiction of two doves holding banners reading “Chiapas,” “Peace” and “Mexico,” as a campesino man and woman walk toward them. Above, Emiliano Zapata, the land-reform hero of the Mexican Revolution, rides a horse and sports a bandana reading, “La tierra es de quien la trabaja,” or “The land belongs to the person who works it.”
Other images show an idyllic riverside village where people work the land and hold community meetings as ski mask-clad Zapatista guerrillas stand at the ready on nearby hillsides.
The mural’s political imagery perhaps didn’t have an immediate connection to Nogales and its border wall, Serrano said, but the history of its creation and the efforts to re-create it did.
“More than anything, it was that it was a form of resistance and a representation of what the community could accomplish,” he said. “The social issues don’t have a lot of direct relevance here, but as a representation of civil resistance, that makes it significant.”
Grijalva said the cross-border community effort that created it in Nogales, Sonora also made the local version of the mural significant, and worth saving.
“This mural tells the story of our border community just as strongly as any words,” the congressman said. “One day we’ll look back on this work of art and thank ourselves for preserving it when we had the chance.”
Future plans
As for the future, Serrano said, once the fence construction project finishes, he plans to return the bust of Morackis to its original spot in the border-side strip at the intersection of Internacional and Fenochio streets that’s informally known as the Espacio Cultural Binacional Alberto Morackis.
He’d like to mount “Vida y Sueños de la Cañada Perla” there as well, against the newer, bigger border barrier that replaced its original canvas.
“We’re going to wait for them to conclude the work, and then we’re going to have to talk with the Border Patrol to see if we'll be able to install it there again,” Serrano said, though he noted there may be resistance to the idea, since one of the reasons for the new, interconnected-pole fence was to allow Border Patrol agents to see clearly into Sonora.
“We’re going to talk with them to see if there’s any way that we can install it. If not,” he said, “we'll look for some other space to display it here in the city.”
http://www.nogalesinternational.com/articles/2011/06/21/news/doc4e00b7fbc8aa4830128705.txt
June 21, 2011
by Jonathan Clark
A community mural painted on the border wall separating the U.S. and Mexico was saved from the scrap heap last week through a binational effort, and an artist who was integral to its creation and salvation says he hopes the artwork, which represents popular resistance, will one day rise again at its original location.
The 60-foot-long mural, titled “Vida y Sueños de la Cañada Perla,” or “Life and Dreams of the Perla Ravine,” was painted by people from both sides of the border in 2005 on the Sonoran face of the landing-mat fence running through Ambos Nogales, a few hundred yards west of the DeConcini port.
It’s a replica of a mural painted in 1998 by Tzetzal Indians on the façade of the community center of Taniperla, Chiapas to represent their lives and dreams after declaring themselves part of an autonomous Zapatista revolutionary municipality. However, on April 11, 1998, a day after the mural and the autonomous municipality were inaugurated, the Mexican Army retook control of the town, destroyed the mural and jailed the man who had directed its creation, university professor Sergio Valdez.
Nogales, Sonora-based artist Guadalupe Serrano, who along with his creative partner Alberto Morackis brought Valdez to the border city for the re-creation project in 2005, said that after U.S. crews replacing the 2.8-mile-long landing-mat fence with a taller, stronger barrier reached the downtown area last month, city officials warned him that the “Vida y Sueños” replica might also be destroyed.
At the same time, he said, he learned that wheels had also begun to turn in Arizona in an effort to save the mural.
“What happened was that in Tucson, there’s an organization called the Sierra Club, and a guy from that organization named Dan Millis got in touch with Congressman Raul Grijalva,” Serrano said.
In a letter dated June 8, Millis, along with Kim Roseman of the K. Newby Gallery in Tubac, Susannah Castro of the Tubac Center of the Arts and Bob Phillips of the Santa Cruz Community Foundation, urged Grijalva to investigate the status of “Vida y Sueños” and other nearby fence art and iconic graffiti, “and act to ensure that these cultural resources are protected for future generations.”
Grijalva responded by dispatching staffer Ruben Reyes to coordinate with the Border Patrol (a Grijalva spokesman said the agency was “very cooperative”), who then worked with contractor Granite Construction to arrange a safe takedown and handover of the mural panels to Serrano.
Early last Thursday, Serrano and members of his art collective Taller Yonke (Junk Studio) showed up at the border fence with a trailer and some tools to dismantle and haul off the mural panels after a Granite Construction crane lifted them off their footing in the United States and laid them on the ground in Mexico.
“We saved the whole mural,” Serrano said. “There were just two pieces at the end that were already gone.”
The other nearby iconography – a mural depicting a loteria card version of the floating eye pyramid, an array of white crosses representing migrant deaths and painted slogans including “Fronteras: Cicatrices en la tierra” (“Borders: Scars on the Earth”) – were not so lucky.
“Those things were in another area, and by the time we realized what was happening, ‘La Migra’ had taken them away,” Serrano said.
There was another important object, not attached to the fence but mounted directly in front of it, that Serrano was able to save: a bust of his collaborator and fellow Taller Yonke founder Morackis, who died in December 2008 from pneumonia, two days short of his 50th birthday.
Border art
Serrano and Morackis began using the Nogales landing-mat fence as a forum for socially and politically conscious art in 2003 when they unveiled “Border Dynamics,” a steel-and-resin piece depicting four, 14-foot human figures pushing against the wall. The artists initially hoped to place the figures on both sides of the fence, but the Border Patrol nixed the plan on the U.S. side, citing security concerns.
The University of Arizona later purchased “Border Dynamics” and displayed it on the campus mall in Tucson before moving it to an area next to the school’s Harvill building.
In March 2004, the artists mounted another provocative piece on the south side of the fence: a series of aluminum human figures and symbols called “Paseo de Humanidad,” or “Parade of Humanity.” Created in collaboration with Tucson-based artist Alfred J. Quiroz, the work represented the suffering of Mexican migrants as they traveled to and from the United States.
But as Serrano noted, “Border Dymanics” and “Paseo de Humanidad” were temporary exhibits at the Nogales fence. The “Vida y Sueños” mural was permanently affixed to it.
The idea for the mural project, he said, came when he met Valdez during a trip to Mexico City. Serrano knew the history of the original mural, and how communities from South America to Europe had re-created it in public spaces as a show of solidarity and resistance. So he asked Valdez to help with a re-creation on the border wall in Nogales, “for what the mural means and what the wall represents,” he said.
Aided by a patron in Hermosillo and an art collective called La Linea, Serrano and Morackis invited people from across Sonora and Southern Arizona to paint the mural in the spring of 2005.
“The only thing we did was coordinate the project,” Serrano said. “We didn’t participate in the painting – all we really did was get the paint ready and coordinate.”
The centerpiece of the colorful painting is a depiction of two doves holding banners reading “Chiapas,” “Peace” and “Mexico,” as a campesino man and woman walk toward them. Above, Emiliano Zapata, the land-reform hero of the Mexican Revolution, rides a horse and sports a bandana reading, “La tierra es de quien la trabaja,” or “The land belongs to the person who works it.”
Other images show an idyllic riverside village where people work the land and hold community meetings as ski mask-clad Zapatista guerrillas stand at the ready on nearby hillsides.
The mural’s political imagery perhaps didn’t have an immediate connection to Nogales and its border wall, Serrano said, but the history of its creation and the efforts to re-create it did.
“More than anything, it was that it was a form of resistance and a representation of what the community could accomplish,” he said. “The social issues don’t have a lot of direct relevance here, but as a representation of civil resistance, that makes it significant.”
Grijalva said the cross-border community effort that created it in Nogales, Sonora also made the local version of the mural significant, and worth saving.
“This mural tells the story of our border community just as strongly as any words,” the congressman said. “One day we’ll look back on this work of art and thank ourselves for preserving it when we had the chance.”
Future plans
As for the future, Serrano said, once the fence construction project finishes, he plans to return the bust of Morackis to its original spot in the border-side strip at the intersection of Internacional and Fenochio streets that’s informally known as the Espacio Cultural Binacional Alberto Morackis.
He’d like to mount “Vida y Sueños de la Cañada Perla” there as well, against the newer, bigger border barrier that replaced its original canvas.
“We’re going to wait for them to conclude the work, and then we’re going to have to talk with the Border Patrol to see if we'll be able to install it there again,” Serrano said, though he noted there may be resistance to the idea, since one of the reasons for the new, interconnected-pole fence was to allow Border Patrol agents to see clearly into Sonora.
“We’re going to talk with them to see if there’s any way that we can install it. If not,” he said, “we'll look for some other space to display it here in the city.”
http://www.nogalesinternational.com/articles/2011/06/21/news/doc4e00b7fbc8aa4830128705.txt
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Giffords asks for new Nogales border wall, irking Grijalva
April 13, 2010
Nogales International
by Jonathan Clark
U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords has requested $3 million in federal funds to replace the border fence in downtown Nogales with a more impenetrable barrier, rankling fellow Democratic Rep. Raul Grijalva, who called the move “a political response.”
In her request filed late last month with the House Subcommittee on Homeland Security, Giffords cited security risks posed by the landing-mat fence, which has stood in downtown Nogales since the early 1990s.
Giffords’ request touted a “more sophisticated” border structure that would “incorporate double-wall fencing, concertina wire … and vehicle ditches,” but Giffords’ District Director Ron Barber told the Nogales International on Monday that the phrasing had been inserted by an overzealous staffer and would be toned down.
Barber said Giffords wanted to see something more like bollard fencing – a series of interconnected, concrete-filled steel tubes – and that concertina wire would not be part of the plan. He said the fence request is being considered for the upcoming fiscal year, meaning that the funds could be available by Oct. 1.
Grijalva, who represents the congressional district that includes Nogales, called Giffords’ request “a political response that sounds to me like overkill.” He wondered why Giffords hadn’t made a similar request to replace existing fencing in downtown Douglas, which lies within her own congressional district. And he said he wished Giffords had consulted with him before making the request, saying he’d like to see a more detailed analysis before committing to a new fence.
“I'm not sure (the request) addresses the real needs of the Nogales area,” Grijalva said in an e-mail, noting that the wrong design could have a negative impact on the city’s economy.
Deputy City Manager John Kissinger said he was in favor of “any fencing project that (will) protect the citizens of Nogales, Arizona,” though he added that the legal and efficient movement of people through the fencing should not be compromised.
“The economy of the City of Nogales and this region depends on our retail trade with Mexico,” he said.
Giffords’ request for the new fencing followed a March 9 meeting of the local Border Patrol Citizens Advisory Board, at which Al White, top patrol agent at the Nogales Station, told attendees that the downtown fence has become a defensive liability.
While drug seizures and apprehensions of illegal immigrants have dropped significantly in the Nogales area, White said, anecdotal evidence suggests that new fencing to the east and west has pushed illegal activity toward the downtown area.
In a letter written to Giffords after the meeting, Citizens Advisory Board member Jim Price described “an untenable situation, one which is endangering the lives of Border Patrol agents and turning back the clock on downtown security here in Nogales.”
Price wrote that “downtown Nogales is rapidly returning to the situation of pre-landing mat fencing, with the criminal element making a significant incursion, thus endangering local citizens and visitors.”
“We are exposed to vandalism, theft, and physical threats on an increasing basis,” he wrote, without citing evidence.
Giffords attached Price’s letter to her funding request, noting on her Web site that all of her appropriations petitions “have at least one letter of support from a state or local official indicating why the project is important to southern Arizona.”
Price, however, is not a state or local official, and no other letter was posted with the funding request.
Greg Kory, who owns a store near the landing-mat fence in downtown Nogales, disagreed with Price’s assessment of security in the area.
“I think it’s one of the most secure places in the country,” he said, noting the large number of law enforcement officers patrolling the area.
Kory said he saw no need to spend $3 million on a replacement fence.
“I don’t want to pay those taxes; I’m overtaxed as it is,” he said. “I’d like to talk to Gabrielle Giffords. I really would.”
Limited outreach
Barber said he had received several other e-mails similar to Price’s, but opted not to post them. And he said he had gone on a nighttime patrol with the Border Patrol earlier in the year and witnessed first-hand the problems with the landing-mat fence.
The fence, he said, is not only easy to breach, but also makes agents vulnerable to rock-throwings.
“It’s just not OK that agents who are trying to do their job should be subjected to rockings from the other side,” he said. “If a fence can prevent, or at least minimize that, it seems to me that it’s a good idea.”
Barber’s assessment of the fence had also contributed to Giffords’ request for a replacement, he said.
However, he acknowledged that except for the meeting with the Citizens Advisory Board, a small group that includes people from around the county, the Giffords camp did little to solicit feedback from residents or business leaders in the downtown area.
Jennifer Allen, director of the Border Action Network, an organization that advocates for the rights of border communities, said that residents of predominantly Hispanic and Spanish-speaking areas like downtown Nogales are often left out of discussions on border policy.
Allen said her group has been urging members of Congress to treat good relationships with border residents as an integral part of border policy. While they may not be as vocal as other groups, Hispanic border residents also want to be part of the solution to local border issues, she said.
“People feel that if they are not treated as part of the solution, they are being viewed, to the contrary, as part of the problem,” she said.
Barber said that in hindsight, he would have liked to have made a more comprehensive outreach effort. But he said the intention behind the funding request – to replace the fence and reduce illegal incursions while improving agent safety in the process – was good.
And he said Giffords had had to move quickly on the plan in order to meet a late-March deadline for appropriations requests.
“There was no intent to slight anybody in the process,” Barber said. “We were on a timeline when this issue came to a head, and we moved as quickly as we could to beat the deadline.”
http://www.nogalesinternational.com/articles/2010/04/13/news/doc4bc48c4a38603963088575.txt
Nogales International
by Jonathan Clark
U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords has requested $3 million in federal funds to replace the border fence in downtown Nogales with a more impenetrable barrier, rankling fellow Democratic Rep. Raul Grijalva, who called the move “a political response.”
In her request filed late last month with the House Subcommittee on Homeland Security, Giffords cited security risks posed by the landing-mat fence, which has stood in downtown Nogales since the early 1990s.
Giffords’ request touted a “more sophisticated” border structure that would “incorporate double-wall fencing, concertina wire … and vehicle ditches,” but Giffords’ District Director Ron Barber told the Nogales International on Monday that the phrasing had been inserted by an overzealous staffer and would be toned down.
Barber said Giffords wanted to see something more like bollard fencing – a series of interconnected, concrete-filled steel tubes – and that concertina wire would not be part of the plan. He said the fence request is being considered for the upcoming fiscal year, meaning that the funds could be available by Oct. 1.
Grijalva, who represents the congressional district that includes Nogales, called Giffords’ request “a political response that sounds to me like overkill.” He wondered why Giffords hadn’t made a similar request to replace existing fencing in downtown Douglas, which lies within her own congressional district. And he said he wished Giffords had consulted with him before making the request, saying he’d like to see a more detailed analysis before committing to a new fence.
“I'm not sure (the request) addresses the real needs of the Nogales area,” Grijalva said in an e-mail, noting that the wrong design could have a negative impact on the city’s economy.
Deputy City Manager John Kissinger said he was in favor of “any fencing project that (will) protect the citizens of Nogales, Arizona,” though he added that the legal and efficient movement of people through the fencing should not be compromised.
“The economy of the City of Nogales and this region depends on our retail trade with Mexico,” he said.
Giffords’ request for the new fencing followed a March 9 meeting of the local Border Patrol Citizens Advisory Board, at which Al White, top patrol agent at the Nogales Station, told attendees that the downtown fence has become a defensive liability.
While drug seizures and apprehensions of illegal immigrants have dropped significantly in the Nogales area, White said, anecdotal evidence suggests that new fencing to the east and west has pushed illegal activity toward the downtown area.
In a letter written to Giffords after the meeting, Citizens Advisory Board member Jim Price described “an untenable situation, one which is endangering the lives of Border Patrol agents and turning back the clock on downtown security here in Nogales.”
Price wrote that “downtown Nogales is rapidly returning to the situation of pre-landing mat fencing, with the criminal element making a significant incursion, thus endangering local citizens and visitors.”
“We are exposed to vandalism, theft, and physical threats on an increasing basis,” he wrote, without citing evidence.
Giffords attached Price’s letter to her funding request, noting on her Web site that all of her appropriations petitions “have at least one letter of support from a state or local official indicating why the project is important to southern Arizona.”
Price, however, is not a state or local official, and no other letter was posted with the funding request.
Greg Kory, who owns a store near the landing-mat fence in downtown Nogales, disagreed with Price’s assessment of security in the area.
“I think it’s one of the most secure places in the country,” he said, noting the large number of law enforcement officers patrolling the area.
Kory said he saw no need to spend $3 million on a replacement fence.
“I don’t want to pay those taxes; I’m overtaxed as it is,” he said. “I’d like to talk to Gabrielle Giffords. I really would.”
Limited outreach
Barber said he had received several other e-mails similar to Price’s, but opted not to post them. And he said he had gone on a nighttime patrol with the Border Patrol earlier in the year and witnessed first-hand the problems with the landing-mat fence.
The fence, he said, is not only easy to breach, but also makes agents vulnerable to rock-throwings.
“It’s just not OK that agents who are trying to do their job should be subjected to rockings from the other side,” he said. “If a fence can prevent, or at least minimize that, it seems to me that it’s a good idea.”
Barber’s assessment of the fence had also contributed to Giffords’ request for a replacement, he said.
However, he acknowledged that except for the meeting with the Citizens Advisory Board, a small group that includes people from around the county, the Giffords camp did little to solicit feedback from residents or business leaders in the downtown area.
Jennifer Allen, director of the Border Action Network, an organization that advocates for the rights of border communities, said that residents of predominantly Hispanic and Spanish-speaking areas like downtown Nogales are often left out of discussions on border policy.
Allen said her group has been urging members of Congress to treat good relationships with border residents as an integral part of border policy. While they may not be as vocal as other groups, Hispanic border residents also want to be part of the solution to local border issues, she said.
“People feel that if they are not treated as part of the solution, they are being viewed, to the contrary, as part of the problem,” she said.
Barber said that in hindsight, he would have liked to have made a more comprehensive outreach effort. But he said the intention behind the funding request – to replace the fence and reduce illegal incursions while improving agent safety in the process – was good.
And he said Giffords had had to move quickly on the plan in order to meet a late-March deadline for appropriations requests.
“There was no intent to slight anybody in the process,” Barber said. “We were on a timeline when this issue came to a head, and we moved as quickly as we could to beat the deadline.”
http://www.nogalesinternational.com/articles/2010/04/13/news/doc4bc48c4a38603963088575.txt
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Wall Worries: Grijalva pushes the Department of Homeland Security to review the border fence's environmental destruction
Tucson Weekly
August 13, 2009
by Tim Vanderpool
August 13, 2009
by Tim Vanderpool
Call it an expression of public will, or just political pandering; either way, you can't call the new wall on our southern border benign.
Cutting a daunting swath from California to Texas, it has degraded waterways, chopped up private property and wreaked environmental havoc by severing wildlife-migration routes and pummeling habitat.
Now, three years after the construction began, and with nearly 700 miles of the fence and barriers complete, Rep. Raul Grijalva is pushing for a fresh—some would say first—look at the environmental fallout from the Secure Fence Act of 2006.
On July 23, Arizona's District 7 congressman sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano urging her department to conduct a full analysis of those impacts, and consider steps toward repair. The letter was co-signed by 42 of his congressional colleagues.
Grijalva says the time was right, given that Napolitano hails from the borderland—she was Arizona's governor before succeeding Bush appointee Michael Chertoff last year as head of Homeland Security—and that the fear factor behind the fence has waned a bit.
"I sensed an opening," he says. "Before, when we'd bring this up, we'd hear, 'Oh, you're promoting terrorism,' from Chertoff and his minions. Anytime we'd even mention the idea of mitigation, study, monitoring, evaluation, we'd hear 'Aah, you're helping harbor terrorists.' They'd wave that bloody rag every time.
"There's a different attitude now," Grijalva says, "a professional attitude, not an ideological attitude. I know that Janet (Napolitano) wants to do the job to keep the border secure. But she's dealing with it in a professional manner and a policy manner, which, to me, creates an opening."
Homeland Security spokeswoman Sara Kuban declined to comment on Grijalva's letter, except to say that Napolitano would be in contact with the various members of Congress.
Meanwhile, Grijalva's request has drawn plaudits from environmentalists, including Dan Millis, coordinator of the Arizona Sierra Club's Borderlands Campaign. "To the Sierra Club, this is a very important and very urgent issue," Millis says, "and I definitely think the timing is good. I don't think a serious look at this has been taken yet, at least by the higher-ups in the Department of Homeland Security."
The letter to Napolitano expressed concerns "regarding mounting environmental and societal impacts related to border security infrastructure and operations." It also requests that the secretary work with other agencies "to create and fund a robust border-wide environmental monitoring program and to provide sufficient mitigation funding for damage caused by border security infrastructure and enforcement activities."
That this letter was dispatched with any optimism at all reflects the sea change since Chertoff's time. In his drive to complete the fence, he repeatedly brandished his congressionally granted authority to waive bedrock environmental laws—such as the Endangered Species Act and National Environmental Policy Act—to keep fence construction humming. In many cases, he used the waiver as a threat, browbeating land-management agencies into abdicating their resource-protection responsibilities.
Southern Arizona's San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area could be a poster child for that abuse. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management cobbled together a half-assed environmental assessment of the fence's potential impacts—concluding that the Normandy-style barriers "won't impede animals or people, because they have enough distance from the ground up," according to a BLM spokeswoman. "They're really just to keep vehicles from driving through the riverbed."
But in hindsight, such kowtowing has "damaged" those agencies, says Stephen Mumme, a border environmental management expert at Colorado State University. "It has led to the impression along the border that they're not using sound science—that they were being heavily influenced by political considerations in the Bush administration and continuing even now.
"If anyone, they were responsible for saying—even if it was politically unpopular—that they needed to have a better sense of what's going on," Mumme says. "But in the last administration, I think it was politically dangerous for managers to say that."
Of course, Chertoff's frantic pace didn't occur in a vacuum. Even as the project rolled forward, there was a steady drumbeat from anti-immigrant right-wingers such as Glenn Spencer and his Arizona-based American Border Patrol. Spencer's group routinely flies along the border to monitor the fence's progress, and loudly complains when there is a slowdown.
That pressure hasn't entirely vanished; Grijalva's efforts come as the Senate is considering a measure to expand "pedestrian" fencing to the entire 700 miles of barrier mandated by the Secure Fence Act. This high steel fencing is meant to block people from walking across the line, and is far more extreme—and damaging to wildlife—than the vehicle barriers now lining much of the border.
But there's been scant attention paid to the enormous social costs inflicted by this security juggernaut. Consider the impacts endured by Texas families who have seen their property—much of it passed down through generations—sliced in half by the wall. More fallout has been felt in Nogales, Ariz., where downtown merchants last year were engulfed by floodwaters that had backed up behind a concrete barrier placed in storm drains by the U.S. Border Patrol.
Then there's the fiscal factor: Grijalva cites Congressional Budget Office estimates that the border barrier has cost taxpayers an average of $3 million per mile to build. Another 15 percent will be added for continuing maintenance.
But the cost to the environment is incalculable. According to biologists, damage to habitat and wildlife migration is impacting species ranging from tiny lizards to mule deer, bighorn sheep, coatis, bears and jaguars. That's exacerbated by damage to watersheds and riparian areas. Again, the San Pedro River could be a perfect example. Two years ago, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers constructed a "temporary" vehicle barrier across the river near Sierra Vista, south of Tucson. The placement followed roughly two miles of fence already existing within the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area.
Groups such as the Sierra Club fought that fence, and lost. Meanwhile, the clock is still ticking, says Millis. He notes that the Department of Homeland Security recently transferred $50 million to the Department of Interior to help soften impacts upon endangered species along the San Pedro and elsewhere.
"But that's all off-site mitigation, basically trying to restore potential habitat for endangered species in the same quantities that it was lost along the border. It doesn't really address the big problems that are happening on the line every day, and that we have tons of pictures of—wildlife blocked by the wall, huge erosion problems in wilderness areas, etc., etc.
"Now there's a huge priority on getting the science in order," Millis says. "This whole thing was really just shoved down our throats."
http://www.tucsonweekly.com/tucson/wall-worries/Content?oid=1281501
Monday, July 27, 2009
Lawmakers: Border fence has drawbacks
El Paso Times
July 25, 2009
by Diana Washington Valdez
EL PASO -- U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, and 42 other lawmakers are asking Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to reduce the damage to communities and the environment caused by border barriers and other security border operations.
Border Patrol officials said the border fence planned for the El Paso sector has been completed.
In a statement, Reyes said, "It is imperative that the Department of Homeland Security work closely with other federal agencies and border communities to mitigate the negative environmental impact the border fence has caused in some areas.
"Federal agencies currently do not have adequate monitoring in place to address the disruptions that resulted from the border fence, and we are urging Secretary Napolitano to implement a border-wide strategy to deal with these problems."
http://www.elpasotimes.com/ci_12911565
July 25, 2009
by Diana Washington Valdez
EL PASO -- U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, and 42 other lawmakers are asking Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to reduce the damage to communities and the environment caused by border barriers and other security border operations.
On Friday, the lawmakers sent Napolitano a letter detailing their concerns and asking her to act on them.
A spokesperson for the Homeland Security Department in Washington, D.C., was not available late Friday for comment.
In some places along the border, some of the security structures have worsened seasonal flooding, according to a 2008 National Park Service report, and may be hurting the Tijuana River habitat, the lawmakers said.
"This massive federal project has had deleterious consequences upon natural and cultural public resources, and has caused hardship for private land owners whose lands have been condemned and livelihoods have been disrupted," the letter said.
Oliver Bernstein, spokesman for the Sierra Club in Austin, which supports the legislators' campaign, said U.S. Rep. Raul M. Grijalva, D-Ariz., is helping to spearhead the effort.
"The Sierra Club has been working to get congressional support for this type of review that would lead to undoing the damage to wildlife," Bernstein said. "There's been increasing awareness of the damage caused by the (fence) project."
Border interdiction activities, such as the use of off-road vehicles and low-level flights, also damage the environment, the letter said. Lawmakers recommend training and other measures to reduce the damage.
Border Patrol officials said the border fence planned for the El Paso sector has been completed.
In a statement, Reyes said, "It is imperative that the Department of Homeland Security work closely with other federal agencies and border communities to mitigate the negative environmental impact the border fence has caused in some areas.
"Federal agencies currently do not have adequate monitoring in place to address the disruptions that resulted from the border fence, and we are urging Secretary Napolitano to implement a border-wide strategy to deal with these problems."
http://www.elpasotimes.com/ci_12911565
Friday, July 24, 2009
Dozens of lawmakers write to Napolitano with concerns about impact of border barriers
Rio Grande Guardian
July 24, 2009
by Steve Taylor and Joey Gomez
McALLEN, July 24 - Forty three members of Congress have sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano voicing concern over the “mounting” environmental and societal impact of the border wall and other security barriers.
The lawmakers have asked the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to cooperate with other applicable agencies to create and fund a “robust border-wide environmental monitoring program” and to provide “sufficient mitigation funding” for damage caused by border security infrastructure and enforcement activities along the Southwest border region.
“It is the Secretary’s responsibility to protect the homeland, not selectively destroy our environment,” said Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva, D-Ariz., one of the 43 members of Congress to sign the letter.
Grijalva, who convened a congressional hearing about the border wall at the University of Texas at Brownsville last year, said a review is necessary to “quantify, compensate for and avoid the negative consequences of border security infrastructure and operations.” He said border communities are “open to working on behalf of security - not a selective security, but rather one that includes habitat, national, border, and regional security.”
Grijalva described the hundreds of miles of border fencing constructed by DHS as a “massive federal project.” He said the project has had “serious consequences upon natural and cultural public resources, and has caused hardship for private land owners, whose lands have been condemned and livelihoods have been disrupted.”
Scott Nicol, a co-founder of the No Border Wall group, pointed out that U.S. Fish and Wildlife estimates that 60 percent of their National Wildlife Refuge tracts in south Texas will be impacted by the border wall. The South Texas tracts were established, in part, for the protection of endangered species such as the ocelot and jaguarondi.
“We are pleased to hear that 43 members of Congress are stepping up to the plate and attempting to correct some of the environmental damage that the border wall has done. If former Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff had not been given the power to waive all laws, this would have been addressed before wall construction began. Chertoff used the Real ID Act to waive the National Environmental Policy Act, along with 35 other federal laws, stopping the usual Environmental Impact Statement process in its tracks,” Nicol told the Guardian.
“Before the first bulldozer dug into the earth to clear a path for the wall, many of its impacts had been predicted. The Environmental Protection Agency warned that blasting in California's Otay Mountain Wilderness Area would dump thousands of tons of rock and sediment into the Tijuana River. Defenders of Wildlife issued a report on the Arizona wall's impacts on the ability of endangered Sonoran pronghorn to migrate. U.S. Fish and Wildlife told DHS that Hidalgo County's levee-border wall would be incompatible with the mission of the wildlife refuges that it would slice through.”
The letter from the members of Congress has this to say about the environmental impact of the border wall in south Texas:
“In south Texas, private land owners and agricultural interests have significant tracts of land that have been or will be isolated to the south of border fencing. Yet, DHS has only offered compensation for the exact footprint of the infrastructure – failure to recognize or compensate for fiscal losses of property value and accessibility caused by the construction of border fencing.”
Nicol said the monitoring and mitigation program that the members of Congress are calling for would be a “good first step towards bringing scientific rigor to an understanding of the wall's impacts.” However, he said the No Border Wall group is concerned that DHS will ignore its findings, “just as they ignored the Environmental Protection Agency, Defenders of Wildlife, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife.”
Nicol said this is the reason that no individual or agency should be given the power to “brush aside” the law.
“While this letter marks an important first step, the real solution would be to take back the power granted to DHS by the Real ID Act,” Nicol said.
“With more wall construction called for in Senator DeMint's amendment, and the likelihood that walls will be included in the upcoming comprehensive immigration reform bill, it is important to recognize the terrible toll that walls have already taken on the environment of the border. It is even more important that members of Congress work to prevent any more from being built.”
The move by the lawmakers won immediate praise from the Sierra Club.
“We applaud the representatives who have taken a stand on behalf of the communities and wildlife of the borderlands,” said Michael Degnan, associate representative for the Sierra Club in Washington, D.C. “We agree with these members of Congress and firmly believe that the Department of Homeland Security should, at the very least, work to repair the damage caused by its border walls and security activities.”
Degnan pointed out that the Homeland Security Appropriations bill that passed out of the U.S. House last month included an additional $40 million for borderlands monitoring and mitigation, but that the Senate version did not.
“As you conduct your evaluation of border security initiatives, we encourage you to consider the importance of monitoring, mitigation, and environmental training for border security personnel in order to quantify, compensate for and avoid the negative consequences of border security infrastructure and operations,” the 43 members of Congress wrote.
Every one of the 43 members of Congress that signed the letter are Democrats. Only one Texas border member failed to sign the letter, Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo.
The 43 members of Congress are:
Max Baca, CA
Earl Blumenauer, OR
Lois Capps, CA
Clarke, NY
Steve Cohen, Tenn.
Susan Davis, CA
Norm Dicks, Wash.
Anna Eshoo, CA
Sam Farr, CA
Bob Filner, CA
Gabrielle Giffords, Ariz.
Charlie Gonzalez, TX
Raul Grijalva, Ariz.
Luis Gutierrez, IL
Maurice Hinchey, NY
Rubén Hinojosa, TX
Rush Holt, NJ
Sheila Jackson Lee, TX
Dennis Kucinich, OH
Barbara Lee, CA
Ben Ray Lujan, NM
Edward Markey, Mass.
Michael Michaud, Maine
Jim Moran, VA,
Grace Napolitano, CA
John Olver, Mass.
Solomon Ortiz, TX
Ed Pastor, Ariz.
Donald Payne, NJ
Jared Polis, CO,
Mike Quigley, IL.
Silvestre Reyes, TX
Ciro Rodriguez, TX
Steve Rothman, NJ
Gregorio Sablan, Northern Mariana Islands
Linda Sanchez, CA
Loretta Sanchez, CA
Jan Schakowsky, IL.
José Serrano, NY
Jackie Speier, CA
Pete Stark, CA
Maxine Waters, CA
Henry Waxman, CA
Here is a copy of the letter:
July 23:
Dear Secretary Napolitano,
We write to you today with concern regarding mounting environmental and societal impacts related to border security infrastructure and operations. As you conduct your evaluation of border security initiatives, we encourage you to consider the importance of monitoring, mitigation, and environmental training for border security personnel in order to quantify, compensate for and avoid the negative consequences of border security infrastructure and operations. We ask that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) cooperate with other applicable agencies to create and fund a robust border-wide environmental monitoring program and to provide sufficient mitigation funding for damage caused by border security infrastructure and enforcement activities.
As you are aware, hundreds of miles of new border fences and patrol roads have been constructed by DHS along the U.S.-Mexico border in the past several years. This massive federal project has had deleterious consequences upon natural and cultural public resources, and has caused hardship for private land owners, whose lands have been condemned and livelihoods have been disrupted. Considerable annual maintenance operations will be required for border fencing. The Congressional Budget Office estimates annual maintenance costs will amount to 15 percent of initial construction costs, which are averaging $3 million per mile. In addition, with DHS adding significantly more Border Patrol personnel, it is becoming increasingly important that impacts related to off-road vehicles, low-level flights and other interdiction activities be quantified and mitigated for, and that DHS provide training for its personnel in techniques to minimize damage to sensitive resources during enforcement activities.
We understand that in 2008 DHS allocated up to $50 million to the Department of the Interior (DOI) for border fence mitigation. It is our understanding this money will be utilized primarily for off-site mitigation targeted to benefit security infrastructure projects. We believe this first round of mitigation for threatened and endangered species, along with the memorandum of agreement signed by DHS and DOI, demonstrate a positive commitment to mitigating negative impacts. However, there are numerous impacts across the border caused by both security infrastructure and operations that will require significantly more resources to properly monitor and mitigate.
For example, the National Park Service issued a report in August, 2008 confirming that border fencing astride the Lukeville Port of Entry has exacerbated seasonal flooding and has caused accelerated scouring and erosion on the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument – threatening to permanently alter the hydrology of the area if modifications are not made to rectify the inadequate design. A similar problem was identified at the DeConcini Port of Entry, where tunnel barrier and fence-exacerbated flooding caused extensive property and infrastructure damage in Nogales, Mexico. There are also serious concerns related to border infrastructure construction-induced siltation and resulting degradation of sensitive habitats of the Tijuana River Estuary and the San Pedro River, located in southern California and Arizona, respectively. In south Texas, private land owners and agricultural interests have significant tracts of land that have been or will be isolated to the south of border fencing. Yet, DHS has only offered compensation for the exact footprint of the infrastructure – failure to recognize or compensate for fiscal losses of property value and accessibility caused by the construction of border fencing.
To date, there has been a lack of scientifically-based monitoring to quantify the environmental impacts of border security infrastructure and operations. Information from monitoring will provide objective data on impacts, so that efforts to avoid impacts and mitigate for unavoidable impacts can be targeted appropriately. It is our understanding that such a pilot program has been proposed and is to be led by the United States Geological Survey (USGS). We understand the initiation of this program is pending a memorandum of agreement between DIIS and DOI. We are concerned that this monitoring program, currently in a conceptual stage, is not being implemented fast enough; ongoing acute and cumulative impacts continue to go unmonitored. We urge you to ensure that DHS is an active partner in establishing this program and in utilizing the information derived from it to inform a robust, multi-year border mitigation fund.
We appreciate your consideration of this request.
Sincerely,
http://riograndeguardian.com/rggnews_story.asp?story_no=25
July 24, 2009
by Steve Taylor and Joey Gomez
McALLEN, July 24 - Forty three members of Congress have sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano voicing concern over the “mounting” environmental and societal impact of the border wall and other security barriers.
The lawmakers have asked the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to cooperate with other applicable agencies to create and fund a “robust border-wide environmental monitoring program” and to provide “sufficient mitigation funding” for damage caused by border security infrastructure and enforcement activities along the Southwest border region.
“It is the Secretary’s responsibility to protect the homeland, not selectively destroy our environment,” said Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva, D-Ariz., one of the 43 members of Congress to sign the letter.
Grijalva, who convened a congressional hearing about the border wall at the University of Texas at Brownsville last year, said a review is necessary to “quantify, compensate for and avoid the negative consequences of border security infrastructure and operations.” He said border communities are “open to working on behalf of security - not a selective security, but rather one that includes habitat, national, border, and regional security.”
Grijalva described the hundreds of miles of border fencing constructed by DHS as a “massive federal project.” He said the project has had “serious consequences upon natural and cultural public resources, and has caused hardship for private land owners, whose lands have been condemned and livelihoods have been disrupted.”
Scott Nicol, a co-founder of the No Border Wall group, pointed out that U.S. Fish and Wildlife estimates that 60 percent of their National Wildlife Refuge tracts in south Texas will be impacted by the border wall. The South Texas tracts were established, in part, for the protection of endangered species such as the ocelot and jaguarondi.
“We are pleased to hear that 43 members of Congress are stepping up to the plate and attempting to correct some of the environmental damage that the border wall has done. If former Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff had not been given the power to waive all laws, this would have been addressed before wall construction began. Chertoff used the Real ID Act to waive the National Environmental Policy Act, along with 35 other federal laws, stopping the usual Environmental Impact Statement process in its tracks,” Nicol told the Guardian.
“Before the first bulldozer dug into the earth to clear a path for the wall, many of its impacts had been predicted. The Environmental Protection Agency warned that blasting in California's Otay Mountain Wilderness Area would dump thousands of tons of rock and sediment into the Tijuana River. Defenders of Wildlife issued a report on the Arizona wall's impacts on the ability of endangered Sonoran pronghorn to migrate. U.S. Fish and Wildlife told DHS that Hidalgo County's levee-border wall would be incompatible with the mission of the wildlife refuges that it would slice through.”
The letter from the members of Congress has this to say about the environmental impact of the border wall in south Texas:
“In south Texas, private land owners and agricultural interests have significant tracts of land that have been or will be isolated to the south of border fencing. Yet, DHS has only offered compensation for the exact footprint of the infrastructure – failure to recognize or compensate for fiscal losses of property value and accessibility caused by the construction of border fencing.”
Nicol said the monitoring and mitigation program that the members of Congress are calling for would be a “good first step towards bringing scientific rigor to an understanding of the wall's impacts.” However, he said the No Border Wall group is concerned that DHS will ignore its findings, “just as they ignored the Environmental Protection Agency, Defenders of Wildlife, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife.”
Nicol said this is the reason that no individual or agency should be given the power to “brush aside” the law.
“While this letter marks an important first step, the real solution would be to take back the power granted to DHS by the Real ID Act,” Nicol said.
“With more wall construction called for in Senator DeMint's amendment, and the likelihood that walls will be included in the upcoming comprehensive immigration reform bill, it is important to recognize the terrible toll that walls have already taken on the environment of the border. It is even more important that members of Congress work to prevent any more from being built.”
The move by the lawmakers won immediate praise from the Sierra Club.
“We applaud the representatives who have taken a stand on behalf of the communities and wildlife of the borderlands,” said Michael Degnan, associate representative for the Sierra Club in Washington, D.C. “We agree with these members of Congress and firmly believe that the Department of Homeland Security should, at the very least, work to repair the damage caused by its border walls and security activities.”
Degnan pointed out that the Homeland Security Appropriations bill that passed out of the U.S. House last month included an additional $40 million for borderlands monitoring and mitigation, but that the Senate version did not.
“As you conduct your evaluation of border security initiatives, we encourage you to consider the importance of monitoring, mitigation, and environmental training for border security personnel in order to quantify, compensate for and avoid the negative consequences of border security infrastructure and operations,” the 43 members of Congress wrote.
Every one of the 43 members of Congress that signed the letter are Democrats. Only one Texas border member failed to sign the letter, Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo.
The 43 members of Congress are:
Max Baca, CA
Earl Blumenauer, OR
Lois Capps, CA
Clarke, NY
Steve Cohen, Tenn.
Susan Davis, CA
Norm Dicks, Wash.
Anna Eshoo, CA
Sam Farr, CA
Bob Filner, CA
Gabrielle Giffords, Ariz.
Charlie Gonzalez, TX
Raul Grijalva, Ariz.
Luis Gutierrez, IL
Maurice Hinchey, NY
Rubén Hinojosa, TX
Rush Holt, NJ
Sheila Jackson Lee, TX
Dennis Kucinich, OH
Barbara Lee, CA
Ben Ray Lujan, NM
Edward Markey, Mass.
Michael Michaud, Maine
Jim Moran, VA,
Grace Napolitano, CA
John Olver, Mass.
Solomon Ortiz, TX
Ed Pastor, Ariz.
Donald Payne, NJ
Jared Polis, CO,
Mike Quigley, IL.
Silvestre Reyes, TX
Ciro Rodriguez, TX
Steve Rothman, NJ
Gregorio Sablan, Northern Mariana Islands
Linda Sanchez, CA
Loretta Sanchez, CA
Jan Schakowsky, IL.
José Serrano, NY
Jackie Speier, CA
Pete Stark, CA
Maxine Waters, CA
Henry Waxman, CA
Here is a copy of the letter:
July 23:
Dear Secretary Napolitano,
We write to you today with concern regarding mounting environmental and societal impacts related to border security infrastructure and operations. As you conduct your evaluation of border security initiatives, we encourage you to consider the importance of monitoring, mitigation, and environmental training for border security personnel in order to quantify, compensate for and avoid the negative consequences of border security infrastructure and operations. We ask that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) cooperate with other applicable agencies to create and fund a robust border-wide environmental monitoring program and to provide sufficient mitigation funding for damage caused by border security infrastructure and enforcement activities.
As you are aware, hundreds of miles of new border fences and patrol roads have been constructed by DHS along the U.S.-Mexico border in the past several years. This massive federal project has had deleterious consequences upon natural and cultural public resources, and has caused hardship for private land owners, whose lands have been condemned and livelihoods have been disrupted. Considerable annual maintenance operations will be required for border fencing. The Congressional Budget Office estimates annual maintenance costs will amount to 15 percent of initial construction costs, which are averaging $3 million per mile. In addition, with DHS adding significantly more Border Patrol personnel, it is becoming increasingly important that impacts related to off-road vehicles, low-level flights and other interdiction activities be quantified and mitigated for, and that DHS provide training for its personnel in techniques to minimize damage to sensitive resources during enforcement activities.
We understand that in 2008 DHS allocated up to $50 million to the Department of the Interior (DOI) for border fence mitigation. It is our understanding this money will be utilized primarily for off-site mitigation targeted to benefit security infrastructure projects. We believe this first round of mitigation for threatened and endangered species, along with the memorandum of agreement signed by DHS and DOI, demonstrate a positive commitment to mitigating negative impacts. However, there are numerous impacts across the border caused by both security infrastructure and operations that will require significantly more resources to properly monitor and mitigate.
For example, the National Park Service issued a report in August, 2008 confirming that border fencing astride the Lukeville Port of Entry has exacerbated seasonal flooding and has caused accelerated scouring and erosion on the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument – threatening to permanently alter the hydrology of the area if modifications are not made to rectify the inadequate design. A similar problem was identified at the DeConcini Port of Entry, where tunnel barrier and fence-exacerbated flooding caused extensive property and infrastructure damage in Nogales, Mexico. There are also serious concerns related to border infrastructure construction-induced siltation and resulting degradation of sensitive habitats of the Tijuana River Estuary and the San Pedro River, located in southern California and Arizona, respectively. In south Texas, private land owners and agricultural interests have significant tracts of land that have been or will be isolated to the south of border fencing. Yet, DHS has only offered compensation for the exact footprint of the infrastructure – failure to recognize or compensate for fiscal losses of property value and accessibility caused by the construction of border fencing.
To date, there has been a lack of scientifically-based monitoring to quantify the environmental impacts of border security infrastructure and operations. Information from monitoring will provide objective data on impacts, so that efforts to avoid impacts and mitigate for unavoidable impacts can be targeted appropriately. It is our understanding that such a pilot program has been proposed and is to be led by the United States Geological Survey (USGS). We understand the initiation of this program is pending a memorandum of agreement between DIIS and DOI. We are concerned that this monitoring program, currently in a conceptual stage, is not being implemented fast enough; ongoing acute and cumulative impacts continue to go unmonitored. We urge you to ensure that DHS is an active partner in establishing this program and in utilizing the information derived from it to inform a robust, multi-year border mitigation fund.
We appreciate your consideration of this request.
Sincerely,
http://riograndeguardian.com/rggnews_story.asp?story_no=25
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