Big Bend Gazette
June 3, 2011
[missed this story when it was initially published]
by John Waters
The proposed border wall/fence for Presidio County along the international boundary with Mexico has been scrapped, according to Department of Homeland Security officials.
Earlier last month during a speech in El Paso, President Obama declared the proposed fencing/wall as mandated by the Secure Fence Act of 2006 “basically finished.”
In response to a query from the Gazette, Bill Brooks, Public Information Officer for U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Marfa Sector said, “We have no fence under construction in Marfa Sector. The Presidio proposed fence will not be constructed.” Brooks added that a lack of funding doomed completion of the project.
In 2008 as mandated by the Secure Fence Act, the Department of Homeland Security announced six miles of concrete wall would be placed atop levees near the international bridge between Ojinaga and Presidio.
When cost estimates of $20 million per mile were received, the project was placed on hold. Precisely when the project was terminated is unclear, although Brooks confirmed no public announcement of the project’s termination was made.
Cynta de Narvaez of Terlingua exclaimed, “Yippee!” when told of the wall’s demise. “We used every method in any civilian’s arsenal—from hall meetings, to honking at placards, to letter writing, to using the media—to try to inform the agencies responsible for our security that the wall was irrational in every way, and they completely ignored us. If there is going to be mutual respect, then we must keep the relationship clean. They should be accountable to us for their misinformed policies; they should acknowledge their bad choices—and then we can all move on.”
http://bigbendgazette.com/2011/06/03/homeland-security-officials-confirm-thatpresidio-border-wall-is-dead/
Showing posts with label Presidio. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Presidio. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Monday, December 8, 2008
Mexico planting own 'green wall' along border
Austin-American Statesman
December 7, 2008
CIUDAD ACUA, Coahuila — Tractor-trailers rumble across the bridge above, but down on the Rio Grande, it's a peaceful autumn morning as ducks paddle the river and herons glide from bank to bank.
On the U.S. side of the river, in Del Rio , plans are moving ahead for a controversial security wall that will eventually stretch across 670 miles of the southwest border.
But on the Mexican side, authorities have begun work on an entirely different kind of wall: a so-called green wall, made of 400,000 trees to be planted along 217 miles of the Rio Grande.
Eventually, Mexican leaders hope the green wall will stretch the entire length of Mexico's shared border with Texas.
Officials in the state of Coahuila, where the project is beginning, call the green wall a rejection of the U.S. border barrier. The local Mexican officials hope the clusters of cypress, mesquite and ash trees will stand in stark contrast to the concrete and steel fencing being erected by the U.S. Homeland Security Department.
"This is a signal of protest, but it's also an opportunity for dialogue to find shared solutions to the question of immigration," said Gabriela de Valle del Bosque , Coahuila's environmental policy coordinator .
De Valle said the green wall will be an opportunity to bring more environmental consciousness to Mexican border communities. Area residents also will participate in riverside cleanups and classes on ecology and recycling.
Local officials hope the green wall will bring more attention to environmental worries associated with the U.S. border wall, particularly the migration of species such as white-tailed deer.
"If they put in the wall, Mexicans will find another way to get across, but the deer and other animals are not going to find a solution like Mexicans will," said Carlos Lombardo Gomez, who is in charge of technical matters associated with the green wall.
Coahuila Gov. Humberto Moreira said the green wall will result in Mexico's longest parkland corridor.
Moreira is no stranger to grand gestures. His administration has garnered national headlines in Mexico by ushering in a gay marriage law and has promised a state death penalty for murderous kidnappers, even though Mexico now outlaws the death penalty.
At a ceremony marking the start of the green wall, Moreira blasted the U.S. border barrier as a "wall of hate."
U.S. officials say the border fence is needed to bolster security along the southwest border. And supporters of the U.S. border wall warn that Mexico's green version could potentially aid drug runners and human smugglers.
Jim Gilchrist, president of the Minuteman Project, a U.S. activist group that monitors the border flow of illegal immigrants, said the green wall will "provide effective camouflage for criminal drug and human cargo cartels as they mass their illicit products behind the tree lines, awaiting delivery into the U.S. under cover of darkness."
So far, the state of Coahuila, which extends opposite Big Bend National Park almost to the outskirts of Laredo, has planted 2,500 trees along 25 miles of border. The state has approved about $1 million for the tree-planting program. Plans would extend the green wall in other border states such as Tamaulipas and Chihuahua.
The U.S. border wall is unpopular along much of the Texas border and has been opposed by most border communities in the state.
Despite that opposition, federal officials say that 90 percent to 95 percent of the 670-mile barrier should be completed or under construction before President Bush's term ends in January.
The City of Eagle Pass recently lost a court battle against the U.S. government over the border fence, and construction has begun near the city's downtown. Mayor Chad Foster , one of the border wall's most outspoken critics, said he doubts the change of administrations will halt the wall.
"I don't think President-elect Obama will take office soon enough to impact (the) damage being done in our town," Foster said.
So far, 426 miles of pedestrian and vehicle fencing have been built, according to the Homeland Security Department, but that includes just 25 miles in Texas.
Federal officials plan to build 116 miles in the state.
In Mexico, few think the green wall will have any real impact on the U.S. border barrier, but local residents are happy that it will bring more green spaces and parks.
Arturo de la Cruz Talavera, who runs daily at a park beneath the international bridge in Ciudad Acuña, is looking forward to the day when the green wall saplings grow into mature trees.
"The green wall is in favor of life, it will create oxygen," he said. "It's not like the steel wall, which just rejects."
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/world/12/07/1207mexgreenwall.html
December 7, 2008
CIUDAD ACUA, Coahuila — Tractor-trailers rumble across the bridge above, but down on the Rio Grande, it's a peaceful autumn morning as ducks paddle the river and herons glide from bank to bank.
On the U.S. side of the river, in Del Rio , plans are moving ahead for a controversial security wall that will eventually stretch across 670 miles of the southwest border.
But on the Mexican side, authorities have begun work on an entirely different kind of wall: a so-called green wall, made of 400,000 trees to be planted along 217 miles of the Rio Grande.
Eventually, Mexican leaders hope the green wall will stretch the entire length of Mexico's shared border with Texas.
Officials in the state of Coahuila, where the project is beginning, call the green wall a rejection of the U.S. border barrier. The local Mexican officials hope the clusters of cypress, mesquite and ash trees will stand in stark contrast to the concrete and steel fencing being erected by the U.S. Homeland Security Department.
"This is a signal of protest, but it's also an opportunity for dialogue to find shared solutions to the question of immigration," said Gabriela de Valle del Bosque , Coahuila's environmental policy coordinator .
De Valle said the green wall will be an opportunity to bring more environmental consciousness to Mexican border communities. Area residents also will participate in riverside cleanups and classes on ecology and recycling.
Local officials hope the green wall will bring more attention to environmental worries associated with the U.S. border wall, particularly the migration of species such as white-tailed deer.
"If they put in the wall, Mexicans will find another way to get across, but the deer and other animals are not going to find a solution like Mexicans will," said Carlos Lombardo Gomez, who is in charge of technical matters associated with the green wall.
Coahuila Gov. Humberto Moreira said the green wall will result in Mexico's longest parkland corridor.
Moreira is no stranger to grand gestures. His administration has garnered national headlines in Mexico by ushering in a gay marriage law and has promised a state death penalty for murderous kidnappers, even though Mexico now outlaws the death penalty.
At a ceremony marking the start of the green wall, Moreira blasted the U.S. border barrier as a "wall of hate."
U.S. officials say the border fence is needed to bolster security along the southwest border. And supporters of the U.S. border wall warn that Mexico's green version could potentially aid drug runners and human smugglers.
Jim Gilchrist, president of the Minuteman Project, a U.S. activist group that monitors the border flow of illegal immigrants, said the green wall will "provide effective camouflage for criminal drug and human cargo cartels as they mass their illicit products behind the tree lines, awaiting delivery into the U.S. under cover of darkness."
So far, the state of Coahuila, which extends opposite Big Bend National Park almost to the outskirts of Laredo, has planted 2,500 trees along 25 miles of border. The state has approved about $1 million for the tree-planting program. Plans would extend the green wall in other border states such as Tamaulipas and Chihuahua.
The U.S. border wall is unpopular along much of the Texas border and has been opposed by most border communities in the state.
Despite that opposition, federal officials say that 90 percent to 95 percent of the 670-mile barrier should be completed or under construction before President Bush's term ends in January.
The City of Eagle Pass recently lost a court battle against the U.S. government over the border fence, and construction has begun near the city's downtown. Mayor Chad Foster , one of the border wall's most outspoken critics, said he doubts the change of administrations will halt the wall.
"I don't think President-elect Obama will take office soon enough to impact (the) damage being done in our town," Foster said.
So far, 426 miles of pedestrian and vehicle fencing have been built, according to the Homeland Security Department, but that includes just 25 miles in Texas.
Federal officials plan to build 116 miles in the state.
In Mexico, few think the green wall will have any real impact on the U.S. border barrier, but local residents are happy that it will bring more green spaces and parks.
Arturo de la Cruz Talavera, who runs daily at a park beneath the international bridge in Ciudad Acuña, is looking forward to the day when the green wall saplings grow into mature trees.
"The green wall is in favor of life, it will create oxygen," he said. "It's not like the steel wall, which just rejects."
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/world/12/07/1207mexgreenwall.html
Monday, September 29, 2008
Border wall sparks big debate in small town
San Antonio Express-News
September 29, 2008
By Hernan Rozemberg
PRESIDIO — This tiny border city in the Chihuahuan Desert has steered clear of international political controversy since the Mexican Revolution nearly a century ago, when Pancho Villa set up his headquarters in Ojinaga, across the Rio Grande, after capturing the town in a bloody assault.
But although people here are now mostly worried about a major flood threat after massive water releases from Mexican reservoirs, their attention might soon return to the issue that for months has placed them amid the uproar known as the border fence.
The Department of Homeland Security is following a congressional mandate to erect nearly 700 miles of barriers along the 1,952-mile border with Mexico by the end of this year. Some 346 miles are in place.
The move has drawn opposition up and down the border, with national attention focused on the fierce legal showdown taking place in South Texas, where many border landowners are fighting government efforts to condemn land for the project.
Hundreds of miles away in the middle of the desert, Presidio hasn't made national headlines, though a similar outcry is taking place over plans to build 6 miles of fencing to straddle the international bridge here.
With about 5,000 people and the only legal crossing point between El Paso and Del Rio, it's not known as a hub for illegal activity. It's in the Border Patrol's Marfa Sector, the agency's largest — with 510 miles of border — but by far its least active.
In the fiscal year that ends Tuesday, the sector has seen 4,741 illegal crossers detained and nearly 54,665 pounds of marijuana and cocaine seized. That pales in comparison with areas such as the Rio Grande Valley Sector, where agents have netted 94,225 crossers and 387,241 pounds of drugs.
In Presidio, the Border Patrol wanted to replace river levees — federal property, no private land affected — with guardrail-topped concrete walls. But the agency put the project on hold when bids estimated the cost at $20 million per mile, or about $120 million in total.
Going back to the drawing board, the government intends to ask engineers to retool the wall design to bring costs down. But construction has now been pushed back to July 1 thanks to that and flood delays, said Angela De Rocha, a Border Patrol spokeswoman in Washington.
Neither De Rocha nor Bill Brooks, spokesman for the Marfa Sector, would comment on why the agency deemed Presidio, a small town in no man's land, an “urban area” akin to other border cities targeted for fencing, such as Laredo and Brownsville.
But Brooks and his bosses spoke at length for months to the local media and in public meetings on why they sought fencing in Presidio.
Actually, they had asked for fencing for years, even before Congress approved the move two years ago. They said the concrete wall would both protect low-lying areas in Presidio from flooding and push illegal crossers and drug traffickers away from downtown, making them easier targets for border agents.
“It only takes a couple of minutes, and once (crossers) get into the community then they're lost to us,” Brooks told the Marfa-based Big Bend Sentinel in May. “So the point of the fence is to make them go around.”
Many community leaders and local residents said they'd reluctantly buy the anti-flooding argument. But try the national security claim and they scoff.
“I'm completely against the concept of fencing the border,” said Presidio County Judge Jerry Agan, who ended a 29-year career with the Border Patrol in 1999 as deputy chief of the Marfa Sector. “They've done quite a few things that have gotten away from the agency's mission, such as the fence.”
Other officials, from the Presidio city manager to chamber of commerce board members, concurred with Agan's assessment, arguing that a fence would go against the area's historic rapprochement — Presidio is composed mostly of Mexicans who migrated north of the river from Ojinaga.
The Mexican government has consistently labeled the move a slap in the face to cross-border partnership.
Raul Acosta, who has served for two years as the Mexican consul in Presidio, said strained relations would be devastating, since in such a desolate region, the border towns lead an “existence in complete mutual dependence.”
Presidio's reliance on Mexican shoppers became evident in recent weeks, as major floods in Ojinaga closed the international bridge, leaving stores along Presidio's main drag nearly empty.
The bridge is still closed, and folks in Presidio now are without ready access to health services — most typically seek treatment in Ojinaga, since the closest clinic on the U.S. side is 250 miles away in Odessa.
Terry Bishop, who moved to Presidio when he was a teenager and now runs his family's 2,000-acre farm, as well as a golf course, is against the fence politically, but can accept it as a flood-control measure.
“They're going to build it no matter what, so let's at least try to do something right with it,” said Bishop, 54, who leases portions of his property, which is next to the levee, to the government.
A mile or so up the road, preparing to throw just-sliced pork chops on the grill, Polo Pérez was not so willing to give the Border Patrol the benefit of the doubt.
As he saw it, resources are scarce in these parts, and it would make sense that the government invest its millions not in a border fence but in common-sense, needed projects, said Pérez, 50, who is married with three children.
Most roads, such as his, are dirt or gravel and could use paving, he said as two pickups drove by, kicking up plumes of dust. And it would be great to have a local hospital, he added.
That's just for starters — if the government wants it, he could quickly make a longer list, Pérez said.
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/state/29873619.html
September 29, 2008
By Hernan Rozemberg
PRESIDIO — This tiny border city in the Chihuahuan Desert has steered clear of international political controversy since the Mexican Revolution nearly a century ago, when Pancho Villa set up his headquarters in Ojinaga, across the Rio Grande, after capturing the town in a bloody assault.
But although people here are now mostly worried about a major flood threat after massive water releases from Mexican reservoirs, their attention might soon return to the issue that for months has placed them amid the uproar known as the border fence.
The Department of Homeland Security is following a congressional mandate to erect nearly 700 miles of barriers along the 1,952-mile border with Mexico by the end of this year. Some 346 miles are in place.
The move has drawn opposition up and down the border, with national attention focused on the fierce legal showdown taking place in South Texas, where many border landowners are fighting government efforts to condemn land for the project.
Hundreds of miles away in the middle of the desert, Presidio hasn't made national headlines, though a similar outcry is taking place over plans to build 6 miles of fencing to straddle the international bridge here.
With about 5,000 people and the only legal crossing point between El Paso and Del Rio, it's not known as a hub for illegal activity. It's in the Border Patrol's Marfa Sector, the agency's largest — with 510 miles of border — but by far its least active.
In the fiscal year that ends Tuesday, the sector has seen 4,741 illegal crossers detained and nearly 54,665 pounds of marijuana and cocaine seized. That pales in comparison with areas such as the Rio Grande Valley Sector, where agents have netted 94,225 crossers and 387,241 pounds of drugs.
In Presidio, the Border Patrol wanted to replace river levees — federal property, no private land affected — with guardrail-topped concrete walls. But the agency put the project on hold when bids estimated the cost at $20 million per mile, or about $120 million in total.
Going back to the drawing board, the government intends to ask engineers to retool the wall design to bring costs down. But construction has now been pushed back to July 1 thanks to that and flood delays, said Angela De Rocha, a Border Patrol spokeswoman in Washington.
Neither De Rocha nor Bill Brooks, spokesman for the Marfa Sector, would comment on why the agency deemed Presidio, a small town in no man's land, an “urban area” akin to other border cities targeted for fencing, such as Laredo and Brownsville.
But Brooks and his bosses spoke at length for months to the local media and in public meetings on why they sought fencing in Presidio.
Actually, they had asked for fencing for years, even before Congress approved the move two years ago. They said the concrete wall would both protect low-lying areas in Presidio from flooding and push illegal crossers and drug traffickers away from downtown, making them easier targets for border agents.
“It only takes a couple of minutes, and once (crossers) get into the community then they're lost to us,” Brooks told the Marfa-based Big Bend Sentinel in May. “So the point of the fence is to make them go around.”
Many community leaders and local residents said they'd reluctantly buy the anti-flooding argument. But try the national security claim and they scoff.
“I'm completely against the concept of fencing the border,” said Presidio County Judge Jerry Agan, who ended a 29-year career with the Border Patrol in 1999 as deputy chief of the Marfa Sector. “They've done quite a few things that have gotten away from the agency's mission, such as the fence.”
Other officials, from the Presidio city manager to chamber of commerce board members, concurred with Agan's assessment, arguing that a fence would go against the area's historic rapprochement — Presidio is composed mostly of Mexicans who migrated north of the river from Ojinaga.
The Mexican government has consistently labeled the move a slap in the face to cross-border partnership.
Raul Acosta, who has served for two years as the Mexican consul in Presidio, said strained relations would be devastating, since in such a desolate region, the border towns lead an “existence in complete mutual dependence.”
Presidio's reliance on Mexican shoppers became evident in recent weeks, as major floods in Ojinaga closed the international bridge, leaving stores along Presidio's main drag nearly empty.
The bridge is still closed, and folks in Presidio now are without ready access to health services — most typically seek treatment in Ojinaga, since the closest clinic on the U.S. side is 250 miles away in Odessa.
Terry Bishop, who moved to Presidio when he was a teenager and now runs his family's 2,000-acre farm, as well as a golf course, is against the fence politically, but can accept it as a flood-control measure.
“They're going to build it no matter what, so let's at least try to do something right with it,” said Bishop, 54, who leases portions of his property, which is next to the levee, to the government.
A mile or so up the road, preparing to throw just-sliced pork chops on the grill, Polo Pérez was not so willing to give the Border Patrol the benefit of the doubt.
As he saw it, resources are scarce in these parts, and it would make sense that the government invest its millions not in a border fence but in common-sense, needed projects, said Pérez, 50, who is married with three children.
Most roads, such as his, are dirt or gravel and could use paving, he said as two pickups drove by, kicking up plumes of dust. And it would be great to have a local hospital, he added.
That's just for starters — if the government wants it, he could quickly make a longer list, Pérez said.
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/state/29873619.html
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