Congress OKs 700-Mile Border Fence

Costing More Than $1.2B, Barrier Will Cover One-Third Of U.S.-Mexico Line

(AP)  Republicans will go into the elections with a message that they've made great strides fighting illegal immigration, including authorizing a fence along one-third of the U.S.-Mexico border and making a $1.2 billion down payment on it.

Among its final tasks before leaving to campaign, the Senate on Friday night passed and sent to President Bush a bill authorizing 700 new miles of fencing on the southern border. No one knows how much it will cost, but a separate bill also on the way to the White House makes a $1.2 billion down payment on it. A 14-mile segment of fence under construction in San Diego is costing $126.5 million.

The fence bill was passed by the House two weeks ago. The Senate vote on it Friday night was 80-19.

In addition to money for staring work on the fence, a homeland security bill Congress was completing Friday includes $380 million to hire 1,500 more Border Patrol agents and money to build detention facilities to hold 6,700 more illegal immigrants until they can be deported.

“We have made giant steps in terms of our ability to control illegal immigration,” House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, told reporters.

The fence bill became House Republicans' immigration focus in September after they abandoned President Bush's call to bring millions of illegal immigrants into the American mainstream.

In addition to the money in the Homeland Security spending bill, Boehner cited Bush's deployment of the National Guard on the border and more frequent arrests of illegal immigrants at work sites.

“The perception that has been painted mistakenly is that the United States government, our Congress is not delivering to the American people on a huge problem that's out there,” said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn. “We're active.”

Democrats and immigration advocates say Republicans can hardly claim victory.

House Republicans failed to win measures for deporting immigrant gang members and empowering local police to enforce immigration laws. Their biggest obstacle turned out to be another Republican, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said the border security achievements trumpeted by Republicans don't measure up to the more comprehensive reforms her party backed. What the GOP calls achievements fall “very far short of what Democrats have proposed over and over and over again,” she said.

After a debate that stretched over three months, the Senate in May passed a sweeping immigration bill that combined tougher border enforcement measures with new guest worker programs and a plan to give millions of illegal immigrants already in the U.S. a shot at citizenship.

Despite Bush's ringing endorsement of the measure, the House would have no part of it, sticking to the bill it passed five months earlier that would treat illegal immigrants and people who offer them aid as felons.

Rather than negotiate a compromise with the Senate, Republican leaders plucked out many provisions of the House bill for new votes in both the House and Senate over the past two weeks.

“It's been two years of high visibility, high volume debate in terms of which way to go in the immigration system,” said Frank Sharry, executive director of the National Immigration Forum. In the end the debate ended in a tie, he said.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., called the fence “a bumper sticker solution for a complex problem.”

“It's a feel-good plan that will have little effect in the real world,” he said. “We all know what this is about. It may be good politics, but it's bad immigration policy. That's not what Americans want.”

Sens. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., made a 11th-hour appeal to colleagues to include in the fence bill a measure to help the agriculture industry, which relies heavily on undocumented workers.

Those workers have become harder to find because of increased border enforcement and availability of jobs for the workers in construction and other industries, they said. Consumers ultimately will pay the price for that at the grocery store, they added.

“Pickers are few and the growers blame Congress,” Craig said, reading a news headline. “The growers ought to blame Congress. They ought to blame a government that has been dysfunctional in an area of immigration that has been problem for decades.”

[newsjeff-2009]

I have trouble feeling sorry for the agriculture industry for complaining or winning about not having workers. The way prices of food keep going up every year, I find it hard that commerical farmers and growers cannot pay fair and legal wages to attract workers. I have a great-aunt who raised cattle till she was around 80 years old and anytime she had me do odd jobs around the ranch place or when she had anyone else help do odd jobs like fence fixing,fixing feed troughs,feeding cows,etc., she always paid anyone who worked for her at least 50 cents higher than state minimum wage in Oklahoma. She made a decent living ranching, but never got rich, so don't expect me to feel sorry for commerical farmers and ranchers that have to pay at least minimum wage to attrack workers. Minimum wage laws were created to protect rights of American workers.

[drgoodwin12]

People that beleive putting up a fence,or a limited amnesty or throwin all illegal aliens out is the answer.I am sorry but none of these proposals will work.Mexicans and others come to our country for a better way of life.The real issue is that Free Trade Agreement is a failure and all those tax breaks congress and Bush gave to corporations two years ago hidden inside the middle class tax cut only promotes the problem.The average Mexican worker who works for a U.S. corporation earns $60 a week,in China(where abortions are mandatory after the birth of the first male,females are killed upon birth) is $4.80 a week.The Free Trade Act and the tax cut to corporations need to be repealed.If we truly want to inspire democracies around the world and lift people out of poverty then we need to make the U.S. corporations pay a comparable wage to the citizens of that country versus the same job here.Until we adopt a policy that is similar to the one I proposed we will continue to have immigration problems.Does anyone remember the stories of the Mexicans who were coming over through drainage pipes or the one where they built and underground tunnel the size of 3 football fields into the U.S. This fence idea might get some votes but it will not solve the issue.

[biermang]

Putting up a fence along one third of the US/Mexico border is not the way to go!

PUT IT UP ALL THE WAY!!!!!!!!!

One step closer. Now if we can just get the government to enforce labor laws, deny them welfare, and take away any reason for them to come here in the first place.

[newsjeff-2009]

I agree with you Sledge but do you think our "hard-working GOP controlled house,senate and white house is going to "actually work" to enforce labor laws and make companies hire only legel immigrants and make all U.S. employers pay at least minimum wage or fair and decent wages to all workers. You think all U.S. Companies and the entire GOP are going to enforce fair labor laws when they can hire "illegal immigrants" to work for cheap low wages, probably lower than minimum wage at that. I close this conversation by saying "I will believe it when I see it," the GOP has controlled the senate and congress for years now and still many U.S. employers are hiring illegal immigrants instead of hiring legal immigrants or unemployed workers living in this country who need jobs badly, and offering them at least fair wages and benefits.