I've written several diaries about the proposed "security fence" along the US-Mexico border, and intend to write more. So I've adopted "Up Against the Wall" as the series title.
Today, I'll mention two stories about screwups in efforts to build the security Wall:
- A mile-and-a-half of "vehicle barrier" fence was constructed over the border from New Mexico - on Mexican territory in Chihuahua.
- UT-Brownsville has discovered the Wall will bisect the campus, leaving part of it on the Mexican side of the wall
Cross-posted to ePluribusMedia
THE "INACCURATE" FENCE
The AP is reporting on a complaint from Mexico that a mile-and-a-half stretch of border wall was built within Mexican territory. While all the reporting is coming from the AP, different outlets are playing up different parts of the story. From the International Herald Tribune:
Mexico is demanding the United States immediately remove a seven-year-old vehicle barrier it built on the Mexican side of the two countries' border.
The Foreign Relations Department said Monday that it sent a diplomatic note to the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City protesting the barrier, built by U.S. military personnel in 2000 west of the town of Palomas in Chihuahua state, across from New Mexico.
Most of the papers who picked up the story are in New Mexico and Texas. It's not surprising that homestate papers are reporting that Sen. Jeff Bingaman is not amused:
"Having to tear down the newly constructed barrier is not only a waste of taxpayer money but also hampers our ability to adequately secure our borders," he wrote in a letter to Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Ralph Basham on Friday.
For unknown reasons, most of the U.S. papers declined to mention the official protest from Mexico.
The exact location of the border along the Rio Grande is a fairly complex matter, because the River moves around during flood periods. There's a little-know federal agency, the International Boundary Water Commission, tasked with keeping track of its precise location:
Sally Spener, a spokeswoman for the International Boundary and Water Commission, said the barrier does encroach into Mexican territory. She did not immediately know the size of the structure or how much of it is on Mexican land.
...
"Obviously it is very important that each country respect the sovereignty of the other and ensure that any infrastructure erected by a government or property owner is put in the proper place," she said.
Link to a picture of a fence like the one to be removed and re-built. The fence in question is located southwest of Deming, NM, near the New Mexico "bootheel", less than 100 miles from the major border straddling metropolis of El Paso & Juarez.
Yesterday, the Santa Fe New Mexican published a rambling, snarky editorial on the subject, imagining a nefarious plot to noodge the border south a few feet at a time, eventually taking over all of Mexico:
'Twas a grand scheme — and it might’ve worked, if Jeff Bingaman hadn’t blown the gaff: As part of our nation’s reverse-Iron Curtain project along our southern border, the guardians of our freedom, a couple of years ago, put in vehicle barriers out west of Columbus — yes, the Columbus attacked by Pancho Villa in 1916.
According to our sources, who are at least as unimpeachable as the guy occupying the White House — some neo-Manifest Destiny zealot, inspired, no doubt, by that handy-dandy villain, Dick Cheney, had some of the barrier put on the Chihuahua side of the line.
...
For the moment, though, this country is expanding inexorably southward ...
Or it would have been — until New Mexico’s junior senator recently got wind of it. Bingaman, seen as a spoil-sport by certain right-wingers, demanded that the wayward barrier be torn down and put where the Gadsden Purchase of 1854 said it should be.
UT BROWNSVILLE
As people along the border have pored over the drawings for The Wall leaked last month, UTB's officials noticed something which prompted their eyebrows to raise. From the Brownsville Herald 6/5/07:
The fence's schematics would place part of the University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College's International, Technology, Education and Commerce Campus (ITEC) on the Mexican side of the fence.
The New York Times noticed, and followed the story up on June 15. Prof. Antonio N. Zavaleta (also a VP at UTB):
"Part of our university," Dr. Zavaleta said, "would be on the Mexican side of the fence."
What about traffic between classes, he wondered. "Would the students need to show a passport?"
He was not the only one who was startled. Local leaders throughout South Texas have been voicing puzzlement and alarm at the implications of the barrier, which Congress has authorized the Department of Homeland Security to construct along 370 miles of the United States-Mexico border, including 153 miles in Texas, by December 2008.
A FEW OPINIONS
Also on June 21, the Sacramento Bee ran an editorial on the immigration issue, which worried about xenophobia (amongst other things):
More immediately, more than a third and maybe as many as half of the nation's illegal immigrants are visa overstayers, people who entered the country legally. For such people, stepped-up border enforcement would make no difference whatsover. If past experience is any indicator, the fences, vehicle barriers and other border control measures in the bill will reduce traffic...mostly by discouraging illegals already here from returning home.
Governors in Arizona, New Mexico & Texas have all spoken variations on the following. This from AP (via Lexis-Nexis) on June 6, 2007:
[Tex. Gov. Rick] Perry got his biggest applause when he came out against the 700 miles of border fencing Congress passed into law last year. He said it was a waste of money and would be ineffective. "If you build a 30-foot wall or fence, the 32-foot ladder business is going to get real good", he said.
Even Republicans get things right, sometimes.
Previous entries in the series: