Texas Observer
October 1, 2008
By Melissa Del Bosque
An international commission on human rights is in Texas today taking a closer look at the border wall and at immigrant detainee rights. Lawyers from the commission are speaking with former detainees from the Hutto immigration facility and other immigration detention facilities. They will also visit Brownsville and other parts of the Rio Grande Valley tomorrow to speak with landowners, lawyers, and UT Brownsville faculty about the border wall.
For those of you unfamiliar with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the commission is appointed by the general assembly of the Organization of the American States. The OAS is an international body, similar to the United Nations, that is comprised of 35 members states from North, Central, South America and the Caribbean. Created in 1959, their headquarters are based in Washington D.C., and in Cost Rica. Every four years, seven international experts on human rights issues from the member states are appointed to serve on the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
The commission examines and monitors allegations of human rights abuses by its member states, including the United States. The commission has investigated some of the worst human rights abuses in the Americas, including the Plan de Sanchez massacre of 250 villagers in Guatemala, and the murders of hundreds of women in Ciudad Juarez.
Denise Gilman, a clinical professor at the University of Texas Immigration Law Clinic requested in August that the commission conduct a hearing on human rights abuses and the border wall. The hearing will be held in Washington D.C. on October 22nd. Gilman and others will attend the hearing along with landowners affected by the border wall. The commission will also ask that a high ranking official from Department of Homeland Security attend the hearing.
The UT law clinic and other legal groups also asked the commission to hold a hearing on immigrant detainee rights. The hearing will be held in Washington D.C., on October 28th.
Interestingly, Gilman says commissioners had planned to visit Texas to tour some of the detainee facilities in Raymondville. The State Department, however, told the commissioners that it wanted the name of every detainee they spoke with. “There was concern about reprisals against the detainees,” Gilman says. So commissioners decided they would not visit the facilities and jeopardize detainees. Instead the UT law clinic is setting up interviews between two staff attorneys from the commission and former detainees from the Hutto facility and other detention facilities in Central Texas.
While the commission may not force a change in Homeland Security’s policies toward the border wall and immigration detainee rights, Gilman hopes it can enrich the immigration debate in the United States. “They bring a unique perspective and look at immigration and the border wall issues from a rule of law and compliance with international norms on human rights,” she says.
Ultimately, Gilman hopes that during an increasingly negative election season in which immigration reform has so far not been a major issue, the commission can help inform candidates about immigration and human rights concerns. “I’m hopeful that this might help frame the issue for the next presidential administration,” she says.
http://www.texasobserver.org/blog/index.php/2008/10/01/human-rights-and-the-border-wall/
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Tamez to be awarded by Texas Civil Rights Project
Brownsville Herald
October 1, 2008
By Kevin Sieff
In her crusade against the border fence, Eloisa Tamez has galvanized residents along the Rio Grande, filing seminal lawsuits against the federal government that have changed the very nature of the barrier's construction.
In the process, media outlets from around the world have converged on Tamez's tiny community of El Calaboz. Congressmen have walked the levee behind her home, stride for stride with the 73-year-old associate professor of nursing at the University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College.
On Friday, Tamez will receive the Henry B. Gonzalez award from the Texas Civil Rights Project, praising her for her willingness to stand up for the rights of border residents. The award is given annually to an individual who has shown personal courage in representing his or her community.
"This makes me energized to continue on," she said. "It's an affirmation."
Of the hundreds of South Texans who live along the path of the proposed border fence, Tamez has been by far the most vocal. She has pushed her neighbors to join her fight, but many, she said, have resigned themselves to the government's plans.
"They're fatalistic," she said. "They fear the government because of the history of oppression along the border."
Tamez's family inherited the property from a Spanish land grant in 1847. Of the grant's original 12,000 acres, Tamez now owns three. The government plans to build a 15- to 18-foot-tall fence through the middle of that property.
Tamez's greatest battle, she said, has been informing Valley residents in similar situations that "speaking up is not against the law."
It's a principle she first recognized at the age of 15, when she led the rancheria of El Calaboz in de-segregation of public schools in Cameron County. She would later serve for 17 years in the U.S. Army Reserves before settling into her current position at UTB-TSC.
She didn't expect that her career as an activist would take off after her 70th birthday, but when she heard about the government's border fence plans, she acted swiftly.
"I may end up losing the land," she said, "but I'm going to be there until my last breath."
http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/news/tamez_90465___article.html/government_border.html
October 1, 2008
By Kevin Sieff
In her crusade against the border fence, Eloisa Tamez has galvanized residents along the Rio Grande, filing seminal lawsuits against the federal government that have changed the very nature of the barrier's construction.
In the process, media outlets from around the world have converged on Tamez's tiny community of El Calaboz. Congressmen have walked the levee behind her home, stride for stride with the 73-year-old associate professor of nursing at the University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College.
On Friday, Tamez will receive the Henry B. Gonzalez award from the Texas Civil Rights Project, praising her for her willingness to stand up for the rights of border residents. The award is given annually to an individual who has shown personal courage in representing his or her community.
"This makes me energized to continue on," she said. "It's an affirmation."
Of the hundreds of South Texans who live along the path of the proposed border fence, Tamez has been by far the most vocal. She has pushed her neighbors to join her fight, but many, she said, have resigned themselves to the government's plans.
"They're fatalistic," she said. "They fear the government because of the history of oppression along the border."
Tamez's family inherited the property from a Spanish land grant in 1847. Of the grant's original 12,000 acres, Tamez now owns three. The government plans to build a 15- to 18-foot-tall fence through the middle of that property.
Tamez's greatest battle, she said, has been informing Valley residents in similar situations that "speaking up is not against the law."
It's a principle she first recognized at the age of 15, when she led the rancheria of El Calaboz in de-segregation of public schools in Cameron County. She would later serve for 17 years in the U.S. Army Reserves before settling into her current position at UTB-TSC.
She didn't expect that her career as an activist would take off after her 70th birthday, but when she heard about the government's border fence plans, she acted swiftly.
"I may end up losing the land," she said, "but I'm going to be there until my last breath."
http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/news/tamez_90465___article.html/government_border.html
Contractors Hired To Build Border Fence
KVEO Channel 23
October 1, 2008
The contractors are hired to build four sections of the controversial border fence throughout Cameron County.Like it or not, Homeland Security says the fence is going up.
Proof of that is in the form of these multi-million dollar construction contracts.
Precinct 2 Cameron County Commissioner, John Wood strongly opposes the fence, and says, these new contracts are a shame.
Two contractors, Keiwit Construction and Jaco Construction have been hired.
Wood says these contractors are being paid about 37 million dollars to bulid the fence in Cameron County on a little more than 7 miles of land. Wood believes this is a waste of money, and says the fence will be built in four separate sections, affecting many land owners.
"It's just not fair, for the landowners, they are being taken advantage of, I don't think they've been treated fairly or negotiated with, " Wood says.
Recently, Commissioner Wood even visited other parts of the state to see what the border fence already looks like.
"I was in El Paso last week, i saw some fencing being done there, a little bit of a difference there, they're using a hurricane like fence, a little bit of mesh wire."
The fence here, Wood says, will probably be an 18 foot high, bollard fence, in which he believes is highly un-wanted. "The federal government's spending money like this, and I think it's useless. '
A date as to when the building will begin has still not been set.
http://www.kveo.com/home/ticker/29983679.html
October 1, 2008
The contractors are hired to build four sections of the controversial border fence throughout Cameron County.Like it or not, Homeland Security says the fence is going up.
Proof of that is in the form of these multi-million dollar construction contracts.
Precinct 2 Cameron County Commissioner, John Wood strongly opposes the fence, and says, these new contracts are a shame.
Two contractors, Keiwit Construction and Jaco Construction have been hired.
Wood says these contractors are being paid about 37 million dollars to bulid the fence in Cameron County on a little more than 7 miles of land. Wood believes this is a waste of money, and says the fence will be built in four separate sections, affecting many land owners.
"It's just not fair, for the landowners, they are being taken advantage of, I don't think they've been treated fairly or negotiated with, " Wood says.
Recently, Commissioner Wood even visited other parts of the state to see what the border fence already looks like.
"I was in El Paso last week, i saw some fencing being done there, a little bit of a difference there, they're using a hurricane like fence, a little bit of mesh wire."
The fence here, Wood says, will probably be an 18 foot high, bollard fence, in which he believes is highly un-wanted. "The federal government's spending money like this, and I think it's useless. '
A date as to when the building will begin has still not been set.
http://www.kveo.com/home/ticker/29983679.html
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Power to Build Border Fence Is Above U.S. Law
New York Times
April 8, 2008
Securing the nation’s borders is so important, Congress says, that Michael Chertoff, the homeland security secretary, must have the power to ignore any laws that stand in the way of building a border fence. Any laws at all.
Last week, Mr. Chertoff issued waivers suspending more than 30 laws he said could interfere with “the expeditious construction of barriers” in Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas. The list included laws protecting the environment, endangered species, migratory birds, the bald eagle, antiquities, farms, deserts, forests, Native American graves and religious freedom.
The secretary of homeland security was granted the power in 2005 to void any federal law that might interfere with fence building on the border. For good measure, Congress forbade the courts to second-guess the secretary’s determinations. So long as Mr. Chertoff is willing to say it is necessary to void a given law, his word is final.
The delegation of power to Mr. Chertoff is unprecedented, according to a report from the Congressional Research Service. It is also, if papers filed in the Supreme Court last month are correct, unconstitutional.
People can disagree about the urgency of border security and about whether it is more or less important than, say, the environment. Congress is entrusted with making those judgments, and here it has spoken clearly. In the process, it has also granted the executive branch more of the sort of unilateral power the Bush administration has so often claimed for itself.
No one doubts that Congress may repeal old laws through new legislation. But there is a difference between passing a law that overrides a previous one and tinkering with the structure of the Constitution itself. The extraordinary powers granted to Mr. Chertoff may test the limits of how much of its own authority Congress can cede to another branch of the government.
Mr. Chertoff explained the reasoning behind the law in a news release last week. “Criminal activity at the border,” he said, “does not stop for endless debate or protracted litigation.”
Mr. Chertoff has issued three similar waivers, and a challenge to the constitutionality of one of them has just reached the United States Supreme Court. If the court decides to hear the case, its decision will almost certainly apply to last week’s waivers as well.
The case was brought by two environmental groups, Defenders of Wildlife and the Sierra Club.
They sued Mr. Chertoff last year over his decision to suspend 19 laws that might have interfered with the construction of a border fence in the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area in Arizona.
Congress, the groups said, had given Mr. Chertoff too much power.
“It is only happenchance that the secretary’s waiver in this case involved laws protecting the environment and historic resources,” the groups told Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle of Federal District Court in Washington. “He could equally have waived the requirements of the Fair Labor Relations Act to halt a strike, or the provisions of the Occupational Safety and Health Act in order to force workers to endure unsafe working conditions.”
(Happenchance? You don’t see that word every day, and certainly not in a court filing.)
The groups said Congress cannot hand over unbridled power to the executive branch even as it cuts the courts out of the picture. They relied mostly on a 1998 Supreme Court decision striking down the Line Item Veto Act, which had allowed the president to cancel parts of laws.
In December, Judge Huvelle rejected the challenge and allowed construction to proceed. She said she had no jurisdiction to decide whether Mr. Chertoff was correct in saying the waivers were necessary, and she ruled that the delegation of power to him was constitutional.
“The court concludes that it lacks the power to invalidate the waiver provision merely because of the unlimited number of statutes that could potentially be encompassed,” Judge Huvelle wrote.
A petition asking the Supreme Court to hear the case was filed three months later.
Did you notice the missing step? In addition to forbidding judges from second-guessing Mr. Chertoff’s decisions, Congress forbade federal appeals courts from becoming involved at all. After losing before Judge Huvelle, the groups’ only recourse is to hope the Supreme Court decides to hear their appeal.
In their petition, the environmental groups said the Supreme Court had never upheld a broad delegation of power like that given to Mr. Chertoff without the possibility of judicial review of executive branch determinations. Nor, they said, has any appeals court.
It is the combination of those two factors — the broad granting of power to the executive branch and cutting the judicial branch out of the process — that makes the 2005 law so pernicious, the groups say.
The government’s response is due next week. In a brief filed in the district court last year, Justice Department lawyers told Judge Huvelle that the urgency of border security must trump other interests. They added that Congress may delegate particularly broad powers in the areas of national security, foreign affairs and immigration because the Constitution gives the executive branch great authority in those areas.
The line-item veto decision does not apply, the government lawyers said, because Mr. Chertoff is not repealing laws for all purposes, just suspending them for his fences.
It is true, of course, that Congress gave up its powers here voluntarily. But Justice Anthony M. Kennedy had a response to that point in his concurrence in the line-item-veto case.
“It is no answer, of course, to say that Congress surrendered its authority by its own hand,” he wrote. “Abdication of responsibility is not part of the constitutional design.”
Justice Kennedy made a broader point, too, one perhaps more apt today than it was 10 years ago.
“Separation of powers was designed to implement a fundamental insight,” he wrote. “Concentration of power in the hands of a single branch is a threat to liberty.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/08/us/08bar.html
April 8, 2008
Securing the nation’s borders is so important, Congress says, that Michael Chertoff, the homeland security secretary, must have the power to ignore any laws that stand in the way of building a border fence. Any laws at all.
Last week, Mr. Chertoff issued waivers suspending more than 30 laws he said could interfere with “the expeditious construction of barriers” in Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas. The list included laws protecting the environment, endangered species, migratory birds, the bald eagle, antiquities, farms, deserts, forests, Native American graves and religious freedom.
The secretary of homeland security was granted the power in 2005 to void any federal law that might interfere with fence building on the border. For good measure, Congress forbade the courts to second-guess the secretary’s determinations. So long as Mr. Chertoff is willing to say it is necessary to void a given law, his word is final.
The delegation of power to Mr. Chertoff is unprecedented, according to a report from the Congressional Research Service. It is also, if papers filed in the Supreme Court last month are correct, unconstitutional.
People can disagree about the urgency of border security and about whether it is more or less important than, say, the environment. Congress is entrusted with making those judgments, and here it has spoken clearly. In the process, it has also granted the executive branch more of the sort of unilateral power the Bush administration has so often claimed for itself.
No one doubts that Congress may repeal old laws through new legislation. But there is a difference between passing a law that overrides a previous one and tinkering with the structure of the Constitution itself. The extraordinary powers granted to Mr. Chertoff may test the limits of how much of its own authority Congress can cede to another branch of the government.
Mr. Chertoff explained the reasoning behind the law in a news release last week. “Criminal activity at the border,” he said, “does not stop for endless debate or protracted litigation.”
Mr. Chertoff has issued three similar waivers, and a challenge to the constitutionality of one of them has just reached the United States Supreme Court. If the court decides to hear the case, its decision will almost certainly apply to last week’s waivers as well.
The case was brought by two environmental groups, Defenders of Wildlife and the Sierra Club.
They sued Mr. Chertoff last year over his decision to suspend 19 laws that might have interfered with the construction of a border fence in the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area in Arizona.
Congress, the groups said, had given Mr. Chertoff too much power.
“It is only happenchance that the secretary’s waiver in this case involved laws protecting the environment and historic resources,” the groups told Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle of Federal District Court in Washington. “He could equally have waived the requirements of the Fair Labor Relations Act to halt a strike, or the provisions of the Occupational Safety and Health Act in order to force workers to endure unsafe working conditions.”
(Happenchance? You don’t see that word every day, and certainly not in a court filing.)
The groups said Congress cannot hand over unbridled power to the executive branch even as it cuts the courts out of the picture. They relied mostly on a 1998 Supreme Court decision striking down the Line Item Veto Act, which had allowed the president to cancel parts of laws.
In December, Judge Huvelle rejected the challenge and allowed construction to proceed. She said she had no jurisdiction to decide whether Mr. Chertoff was correct in saying the waivers were necessary, and she ruled that the delegation of power to him was constitutional.
“The court concludes that it lacks the power to invalidate the waiver provision merely because of the unlimited number of statutes that could potentially be encompassed,” Judge Huvelle wrote.
A petition asking the Supreme Court to hear the case was filed three months later.
Did you notice the missing step? In addition to forbidding judges from second-guessing Mr. Chertoff’s decisions, Congress forbade federal appeals courts from becoming involved at all. After losing before Judge Huvelle, the groups’ only recourse is to hope the Supreme Court decides to hear their appeal.
In their petition, the environmental groups said the Supreme Court had never upheld a broad delegation of power like that given to Mr. Chertoff without the possibility of judicial review of executive branch determinations. Nor, they said, has any appeals court.
It is the combination of those two factors — the broad granting of power to the executive branch and cutting the judicial branch out of the process — that makes the 2005 law so pernicious, the groups say.
The government’s response is due next week. In a brief filed in the district court last year, Justice Department lawyers told Judge Huvelle that the urgency of border security must trump other interests. They added that Congress may delegate particularly broad powers in the areas of national security, foreign affairs and immigration because the Constitution gives the executive branch great authority in those areas.
The line-item veto decision does not apply, the government lawyers said, because Mr. Chertoff is not repealing laws for all purposes, just suspending them for his fences.
It is true, of course, that Congress gave up its powers here voluntarily. But Justice Anthony M. Kennedy had a response to that point in his concurrence in the line-item-veto case.
“It is no answer, of course, to say that Congress surrendered its authority by its own hand,” he wrote. “Abdication of responsibility is not part of the constitutional design.”
Justice Kennedy made a broader point, too, one perhaps more apt today than it was 10 years ago.
“Separation of powers was designed to implement a fundamental insight,” he wrote. “Concentration of power in the hands of a single branch is a threat to liberty.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/08/us/08bar.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
Friday, September 26, 2008
Border fence in El Paso county costing $220 million
El Paso Times
September 26, 2008
AUSTIN -- Nearly all of the 110 miles of border fencing planned for West Texas and New Mexico have been contracted out at the cost of more than $220 million, a Department of Homeland Security official said Thursday.
Angela de Rocha, a Homeland Security spokeswoman, said the department has awarded 11 contracts for fencing in the U.S. Border Patrol's El Paso sector, which includes Hudspeth and El Paso counties in Texas and all of New Mexico.
Homeland Security is working to complete 670 miles of fencing on the U.S.-Mexico border by the end of this year. About 340 miles of fence has been built, and Congress has approved $2.6 billion for construction. But Homeland Security officials recently told Congress the project might not be finished on target and asked for an additional $400 million for construction.
The El Paso sector contracts, which are composed of all but one mile of fencing planned for the region, total about $228 million, de Rocha said.
"Until this final contract is awarded, the completion date for the El Paso sector is to be determined," she said in an e-mail.
Doug Mosier, a spokesman for the El Paso Border Patrol sector, said just more than three miles of pedestrian fencing, 15- to 18-foot-high wire mesh barriers, have been completed in Doña Ana County.
Three other stretches of fence are now under construction. One project is in Luna County, N.M.
In Santa Teresa, a one-mile stretch is being built beginning at the port of entry and running east.
And in El Paso County, a 9.6-mile section of the fence is being built, starting one mile east of the Bridge of the Americas port of entry and extending to one mile east of the Ysleta port of entry.
That is part of a 60-mile stretch of fencing that will extend east to Fort Hancock.
Mosier said the goal is to complete all fencing in the El Paso sector by the endof the year.
"The overall goal is to be able to impede illegal immigrants and the smuggling activity that comes with that at times," he said.
The fencing, he said, would also reduce attacks on Border Patrol agents.
Border fencing has met perhaps the stiffest opposition in Texas, where Homeland Security has faced legal challenges and loud protests from border residents and community leaders.
This week, El Paso County decided to take its case against the DHS to the Supreme Court.
The lawsuit -- which the city, the Tigua tribe and other local groups joined -- challenges the constitutionality of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Cher toff's use of waivers to bypass dozens of laws and build the barrier quickly.
"If we don't pursue this, É what we are saying is we will accept whatever the government wants to dish out regardless of whether it violates our civil rights," said El Paso County Commissioner Veronica Escobar.
http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_10561994
September 26, 2008
AUSTIN -- Nearly all of the 110 miles of border fencing planned for West Texas and New Mexico have been contracted out at the cost of more than $220 million, a Department of Homeland Security official said Thursday.
Angela de Rocha, a Homeland Security spokeswoman, said the department has awarded 11 contracts for fencing in the U.S. Border Patrol's El Paso sector, which includes Hudspeth and El Paso counties in Texas and all of New Mexico.
Homeland Security is working to complete 670 miles of fencing on the U.S.-Mexico border by the end of this year. About 340 miles of fence has been built, and Congress has approved $2.6 billion for construction. But Homeland Security officials recently told Congress the project might not be finished on target and asked for an additional $400 million for construction.
The El Paso sector contracts, which are composed of all but one mile of fencing planned for the region, total about $228 million, de Rocha said.
"Until this final contract is awarded, the completion date for the El Paso sector is to be determined," she said in an e-mail.
Doug Mosier, a spokesman for the El Paso Border Patrol sector, said just more than three miles of pedestrian fencing, 15- to 18-foot-high wire mesh barriers, have been completed in Doña Ana County.
Three other stretches of fence are now under construction. One project is in Luna County, N.M.
In Santa Teresa, a one-mile stretch is being built beginning at the port of entry and running east.
And in El Paso County, a 9.6-mile section of the fence is being built, starting one mile east of the Bridge of the Americas port of entry and extending to one mile east of the Ysleta port of entry.
That is part of a 60-mile stretch of fencing that will extend east to Fort Hancock.
Mosier said the goal is to complete all fencing in the El Paso sector by the endof the year.
"The overall goal is to be able to impede illegal immigrants and the smuggling activity that comes with that at times," he said.
The fencing, he said, would also reduce attacks on Border Patrol agents.
Border fencing has met perhaps the stiffest opposition in Texas, where Homeland Security has faced legal challenges and loud protests from border residents and community leaders.
This week, El Paso County decided to take its case against the DHS to the Supreme Court.
The lawsuit -- which the city, the Tigua tribe and other local groups joined -- challenges the constitutionality of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Cher toff's use of waivers to bypass dozens of laws and build the barrier quickly.
"If we don't pursue this, É what we are saying is we will accept whatever the government wants to dish out regardless of whether it violates our civil rights," said El Paso County Commissioner Veronica Escobar.
http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_10561994
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Border visits no longer will be day at beach
New barrier to limit families' socializing
San Diego Union-Tribune
September 24, 2008
It was like any seaside picnic, with family members sitting on folding chairs, colorful umbrellas and a cooler full of sodas. The only unusual thing was the steel mesh fence running through the middle of it.
On a recent Sunday, the Sotomayor family of Riverside rose early, packed a lunch and drove south to Border Field State Park, where the fence that separates the United States from Mexico meets the ocean.
As many Mexican-American families have done for years, they were there to spend the day with relatives unable to legally cross north to hug them and must be content to visit at the see-through fence.
This binational social scene, as it exists now, is unique along the southern border of the United States. Soon, it will be a memory.
The federal government's effort to slam the door on illegal immigration, drug smuggling and the threat of terrorism means a new secondary fence will be built in the park, creating a 90-foot-wide no-man's land of patrol roads and security lights that extends to the sea.
Construction is to begin next month. The barrier will not be solid, but it will block most access to the primary fence, which is composed chiefly of loosely spaced metal pilings on the beach and mesh on the bluff above.
Federal officials said a gate in the new fence will allow visitors to reach the 1851 border monument that marks the point where the United States and Mexico agreed on a common border after the Mexican-American War. The worn marble obelisk is accommodated by a cutout in the fence.
Access details to a roughly 40-foot-wide space surrounding the monument are being worked out between federal and state officials. When the gate is closed, visitors will still be able to see into Mexico, but any socializing will be limited to waving from a distance.
The construction, which involves installing a 15-foot-high picket-style fence that runs the length of the park, is part of a $60 million federal project that includes filling in Smuggler's Gulch, a deep canyon to the east.
The idea to close gaps in a 14-mile section of secondary fence running inland from the ocean is part of a national security plan that has been in the works since the mid-1990s, said Angela de Rocha, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokeswoman. The project is not affected by a budget shortfall that could derail more recently authorized fencing along the southern border.
Work in the park has begun. Visitors once could set up their chairs along the fence on the beach or on a dirt strip between the fence and the parking lot. Recently installed plastic mesh blocks access to all but the monument area and the lower section on the sand.
The monument's history dates to shortly after the 1848 signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in which Mexico ceded what is now the southwestern United States to its northern neighbor after the war. According to the Web site for Border Field State Park, delegations from both countries began surveying the boundary at this location in 1850, and the monument was erected shortly afterward.
The marble spire became so popular that bits were chipped off as souvenirs; according to state parks officials, it had to be reshaped and re-installed in 1894. The area was dedicated as a state park in 1971, acquiring the nickname “Friendship Park” along the way.
While a few informal meeting spots exist along the southern border, Border Field State Park is unique in that it is a refuge within an urban area where people can park their cars, pull a chair to the fence and spend the day with relatives and friends on the south side.
“It's like a day in the country, a picnic. Only they are there, and we are here,” said José Sotomayor, 38, holding his 2-year-old son while his wife chatted through the fence with her mother and siblings, who had driven north from Ensenada.
The location also is a rendezvous spot for people who have organized cross-border events ranging from protests to salsa classes.
Other visiting spots include the communities of Sunland Park, N.M., and Anapra, Mexico, where an annual binational Mass is held at the steel mesh fence; the twin East County-Baja California towns of Jacumba and Jacume; and the fence by the port of entry separating downtown Nogales, Ariz., from Nogales, Mexico.
Jacumba locals say that tight security now bars most social interaction. In New Mexico, the fence abuts a patrol road, which makes sitting and talking difficult. In Nogales, Ariz., the steel mesh is flanked by sidewalks, port officials say, and most conversation is limited to brief exchanges between shoppers on the north side and relatives waiting on the south.
The appeal of a meeting place such as Border Field State Park is strongest for those who can't travel to Mexico to see family, either because they are in the process of adjusting their immigration status or because they are undocumented.
Sitting a few feet from the Sotomayor family, members of the Vera family of El Monte, a Los Angeles suburb, included two sons who are U.S. citizens; the father, who is a legal resident; and the mother, who is in the process of being sponsored for residency by her husband. Her status prohibits her from leaving the country.
“In our case, it doesn't matter if there is a fence,” said Armando Vera, 42, of himself and his sons. “But my wife can't travel. She has to wait another two years.”
The family makes regular trips to the fence to see Leticia Vera's mother, who lives in Tijuana. In the time they have traveled to the fence, they have noticed several changes. Holes in the fence have been fixed, they said, and border agents have become stricter about visitors passing food through the barrier.
“We learned today that we can't even give each other a soda,” said Leticia Vera, 42. “Before, we could reach through the fence and hug each other.”
The Border Patrol has set up a checkpoint near the park entrance. Agent Jason Rodgers said that in spite of existing fencing and patrols, human and drug smuggling still occurs in the area.
“Obviously, we value family unity,” Rodgers said. “However, our priority here is the safety and security of our nation's borders, and this fencing, in that regard, is a piece of the puzzle.”
The fence plan has drawn complaints from several U.S.-based environmental, immigrant-rights, border friendship and religious groups.
“It's going to kind of scare people away,” said Daniel Watman, a Spanish teacher and organizer of Border Meetup, which has conducted yoga, surfing and other events at the fence to promote cultural interaction. “When they see the Border Patrol checking IDs, and all of a sudden there is a 20-foot wall, people are going to say, 'Nah, why bother.' ”
Although some have been meeting at the fence for years, the Sotomayor family learned about Border Field State Park recently. They were making their second visit. Both José Sotomayor and his wife, Rosa Cobian, are awaiting their green cards and can't travel out of the country.
On the south side of the fence, Cobian's mother, Cecilia Nuñez, reveled in getting to know her four grandchildren, whom she only knew through photographs until recently. She hoped the new fence wouldn't get in the way of afternoons like these.
“I'd like to have better communication with them,” said Nuñez, 67, as toddler Jesse giggled on the other side of the mesh, a yard or so away. “I hope we can still keep seeing each other.”
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20080924/news_1n24monument.html
San Diego Union-Tribune
September 24, 2008
It was like any seaside picnic, with family members sitting on folding chairs, colorful umbrellas and a cooler full of sodas. The only unusual thing was the steel mesh fence running through the middle of it.
On a recent Sunday, the Sotomayor family of Riverside rose early, packed a lunch and drove south to Border Field State Park, where the fence that separates the United States from Mexico meets the ocean.
As many Mexican-American families have done for years, they were there to spend the day with relatives unable to legally cross north to hug them and must be content to visit at the see-through fence.
This binational social scene, as it exists now, is unique along the southern border of the United States. Soon, it will be a memory.
The federal government's effort to slam the door on illegal immigration, drug smuggling and the threat of terrorism means a new secondary fence will be built in the park, creating a 90-foot-wide no-man's land of patrol roads and security lights that extends to the sea.
Construction is to begin next month. The barrier will not be solid, but it will block most access to the primary fence, which is composed chiefly of loosely spaced metal pilings on the beach and mesh on the bluff above.
Federal officials said a gate in the new fence will allow visitors to reach the 1851 border monument that marks the point where the United States and Mexico agreed on a common border after the Mexican-American War. The worn marble obelisk is accommodated by a cutout in the fence.
Access details to a roughly 40-foot-wide space surrounding the monument are being worked out between federal and state officials. When the gate is closed, visitors will still be able to see into Mexico, but any socializing will be limited to waving from a distance.
The construction, which involves installing a 15-foot-high picket-style fence that runs the length of the park, is part of a $60 million federal project that includes filling in Smuggler's Gulch, a deep canyon to the east.
The idea to close gaps in a 14-mile section of secondary fence running inland from the ocean is part of a national security plan that has been in the works since the mid-1990s, said Angela de Rocha, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokeswoman. The project is not affected by a budget shortfall that could derail more recently authorized fencing along the southern border.
Work in the park has begun. Visitors once could set up their chairs along the fence on the beach or on a dirt strip between the fence and the parking lot. Recently installed plastic mesh blocks access to all but the monument area and the lower section on the sand.
The monument's history dates to shortly after the 1848 signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in which Mexico ceded what is now the southwestern United States to its northern neighbor after the war. According to the Web site for Border Field State Park, delegations from both countries began surveying the boundary at this location in 1850, and the monument was erected shortly afterward.
The marble spire became so popular that bits were chipped off as souvenirs; according to state parks officials, it had to be reshaped and re-installed in 1894. The area was dedicated as a state park in 1971, acquiring the nickname “Friendship Park” along the way.
While a few informal meeting spots exist along the southern border, Border Field State Park is unique in that it is a refuge within an urban area where people can park their cars, pull a chair to the fence and spend the day with relatives and friends on the south side.
“It's like a day in the country, a picnic. Only they are there, and we are here,” said José Sotomayor, 38, holding his 2-year-old son while his wife chatted through the fence with her mother and siblings, who had driven north from Ensenada.
The location also is a rendezvous spot for people who have organized cross-border events ranging from protests to salsa classes.
Other visiting spots include the communities of Sunland Park, N.M., and Anapra, Mexico, where an annual binational Mass is held at the steel mesh fence; the twin East County-Baja California towns of Jacumba and Jacume; and the fence by the port of entry separating downtown Nogales, Ariz., from Nogales, Mexico.
Jacumba locals say that tight security now bars most social interaction. In New Mexico, the fence abuts a patrol road, which makes sitting and talking difficult. In Nogales, Ariz., the steel mesh is flanked by sidewalks, port officials say, and most conversation is limited to brief exchanges between shoppers on the north side and relatives waiting on the south.
The appeal of a meeting place such as Border Field State Park is strongest for those who can't travel to Mexico to see family, either because they are in the process of adjusting their immigration status or because they are undocumented.
Sitting a few feet from the Sotomayor family, members of the Vera family of El Monte, a Los Angeles suburb, included two sons who are U.S. citizens; the father, who is a legal resident; and the mother, who is in the process of being sponsored for residency by her husband. Her status prohibits her from leaving the country.
“In our case, it doesn't matter if there is a fence,” said Armando Vera, 42, of himself and his sons. “But my wife can't travel. She has to wait another two years.”
The family makes regular trips to the fence to see Leticia Vera's mother, who lives in Tijuana. In the time they have traveled to the fence, they have noticed several changes. Holes in the fence have been fixed, they said, and border agents have become stricter about visitors passing food through the barrier.
“We learned today that we can't even give each other a soda,” said Leticia Vera, 42. “Before, we could reach through the fence and hug each other.”
The Border Patrol has set up a checkpoint near the park entrance. Agent Jason Rodgers said that in spite of existing fencing and patrols, human and drug smuggling still occurs in the area.
“Obviously, we value family unity,” Rodgers said. “However, our priority here is the safety and security of our nation's borders, and this fencing, in that regard, is a piece of the puzzle.”
The fence plan has drawn complaints from several U.S.-based environmental, immigrant-rights, border friendship and religious groups.
“It's going to kind of scare people away,” said Daniel Watman, a Spanish teacher and organizer of Border Meetup, which has conducted yoga, surfing and other events at the fence to promote cultural interaction. “When they see the Border Patrol checking IDs, and all of a sudden there is a 20-foot wall, people are going to say, 'Nah, why bother.' ”
Although some have been meeting at the fence for years, the Sotomayor family learned about Border Field State Park recently. They were making their second visit. Both José Sotomayor and his wife, Rosa Cobian, are awaiting their green cards and can't travel out of the country.
On the south side of the fence, Cobian's mother, Cecilia Nuñez, reveled in getting to know her four grandchildren, whom she only knew through photographs until recently. She hoped the new fence wouldn't get in the way of afternoons like these.
“I'd like to have better communication with them,” said Nuñez, 67, as toddler Jesse giggled on the other side of the mesh, a yard or so away. “I hope we can still keep seeing each other.”
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20080924/news_1n24monument.html
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