WASHINGTON, April 1, 2008
Bush To Use Waivers To Finish Border Fence
Administration To Sidestep 30 Laws And Regulations To Battle Illegal Immigration
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Photo
A zig-zagging second fence, center, runs parallel to the orginal border fence, right, along the U.S./Mexico border in San Diego, in a Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2003 file photo. Federal officials said Tuesday, April 1, 2008, that the Bush administration will bypass more than 30 laws and regulations in an effort to complete 670 miles of fence along the southwest U.S. border by the end of this year. (AP Photo/Denis Poroy, File)
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Photo Essay
Border Insecurity
The slow, sensitive path to tighter security along America's borders.
Invoking the two legal waivers - which Congress authorized - would cut through bureaucratic red tape and sidestep environmental laws that currently stand in the way of the Homeland Security Department building 267 miles of fencing in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, according to officials familiar with the plan. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the waivers had not yet been announced.
The move would be the biggest use of legal waivers since the administration started building the fence, and it would cover a total of 470 miles along the Southwest border. Previously, the department has used its waiver authority for two portions of fence in Arizona and one portion in San Diego.
As of March 17, there were 309 miles of fencing in place, leaving 361 to be completed by the end of the year to meet the department's goal. Of those, 267 miles are being held up by federal, state and local laws and regulations, the officials said.
One waiver would address the construction of a 22-mile levee barrier in Hidalgo County, Texas. The other waiver would cover 30 miles of fencing and technology deployment on environmentally sensitive ground in San Diego, southern Arizona and the Rio Grande; and 215 miles in California, Arizona and Texas that face other legal impediments due to administrative processes. For instance, building in some areas requires assessments and studies that - if conducted - could not be completed in time to finish the fence by the end of the year.
Brownsville Mayor Pat M. Ahumada Jr. is asking city commissioners to revoke access to city land from the federal government.
"We should make the federal government earn every inch to get on our land and not compromise," Ahumada told the Brownville Herald Monday.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff had said using the waivers would be a last resort. The department has held more than 100 meetings with lawmakers, environmental groups and residents in an effort to work out obstacles and objections to fence construction. The department will conduct environmental assessments when necessary, one of the officials said. But the waivers allow the department to start building before completing the assessments.
The department was expected to announce the plans later Tuesday.
Residents and property owners along the U.S.-Mexico border have complained about the construction of fencing. In South Texas, where opposition has been widespread, land owners refused to give the government access to property along the fence route.
The government has since sued more than 50 property owners in South Texas to gain access to the land.
Environmentalists have also complained about the fence because they say it puts already endangered species such as two types of wild cats - the ocelot and the jaguarundi - in even more danger of extinction. They say the fence would prevent them from swimming across the Rio Grande to mate.
Chertoff has said the fence is good for the environment because immigrants degrade the land with trash and human waste when they sneak illegally into the country.
© MMVIII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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The fence MUST be built by the end of this year. Once the Dems get into power next Jan 20 (and by Dems I include the RINO AMNESTY-JOHN), the fence will be stopped and what has been built left to decay. Open-borders will then be the new policy, to the detriment of all US citizens.
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Re: "A zig-zagging second fence, center, runs parallel to the orginal border fence, right, along the U.S./Mexico border in San Diego, in a Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2003 file photo."
Nice one!
Kind of like the apartheid "fence" in occupied Palestine, the "fence" that carves up Baghdad, and the Great "Fence" of China!
Posted by exCoachKen
The American people want the borders closed. That''s reason enough.
to stop the migration youll need economic development, not fences.....
In a hundred years there will be footage on the news of citizens using sledgehammers on the Bu$h Memorial Wall of Stupidity...
Brownsville Mayor Pat M. Ahumada Jr.
He better be careful or he''ll wake up on Thursday in Camp X-Ray in Cuba, signed, sealed and delivered by D*ck Cheney himself with buckshot in his arse.
The Great USSA Border Fence is coming and will be built right through whatever property you may own!
The Great Emperor Bush II wants "Da Fence" finished by the end of the year, thus preventing illegal immigrants from gaining entry into the USSA (so he thinks!).
Though it has been proven time and time again through history that walls and fences do NOT keep people OUT, and seldom keep people IN, the Great Emperor has disregarded what history says but only does what his brain (and VP Darth Vader Cheney, Halliburton, and KBR) tell him!
Examples of walls and fences through history include:
1) Hadrian''s Wall in Britain - meant to keep the "barbarians out of the Roman Empire. They got in anyway!!
2) The Great Wall of China - meant to keep the "barbarians" out of China. They got in too!!!
3) The Berlin Wall - meant to keep the East German people IN. People tunneled under it, flew over it, snuck through it; the thing lasted 30 years before it was knocked down!
Only a neocon Fascist Nazi thinks building a wall is going to solve problems!
SIG HEIL, BUSH!!!!
sig heil, (more of the same) McCain????
all we are are just bricks in the wall
''Mankind need more often be reminded than informed''
Dr. Samuel Johnson
1709-1784
in Presidio Texas, his family are Native U.S. Citizens
and own land around the River area for generations
they also have a home in a separate plot walking distance to their land, 2 days after driving in and settling down, My friend along with his father walked over to the family plot, and just 30 minutes later
homeland Security Showed up and harassed the mother who was home alone,
they went inside the home, and searched their luggage,
everything else in the house,
all without a warrant,
had it been myself id have told them to go take a swim, and come back with a warrant, but the mother was so intimidated she let them in.
is this the kind of society we have become, walled in and badge carrying monkeys harassing old ladies?
7 years into his presidency, he''s now acheived "lamest of lame ducks" status, and NOW he''s going to do something about illegal immigrants?
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Posted by nottellin1 at
Not True they will self deport to other states!
Close the Border! Let''s also pass a Comprehensive Reform Bill!
Who hires all of these illegals? Mostly fat cat construction companies and big corporations because small businesses know they not the big boys will get hauled in by the feds.
The Bush presidency has been a complete disaster.
Will Ferrell got it right on Saturday Live shortly after Bush was "elected" in 2000- the cowering Bush hiding under his desk while Washington was attacked. That skit was about 6 months before 911, guess Ferrell knew. He left the show shortly therafter.
India and China as well,
Some U.S. Companies have closed their mexican operations and migrated to Asia, where labor laws arent as defined.
Posted by rudy654 at 04:32 PM : Apr 01, 2008
Ahh if it were only that simple.
Most are not "lettuce pickers". They have taken over jobs in the building industry for wages they can''t even live on. Thus "qualifying" them for free medical coverage, food stamps and subsidized housing, which by the way, most Americans can''t even qualify for.
This government and its corporations has been promoting its own level of slavery.
If middle class Americans won''t work for "pittance" wages for the wealthy-they''ll get their own--they just don''t have to "buy" them, they allow them to come here on their own.
Posted by Quetzal0666 at 04:26 PM : Apr 01, 2008
That is just the tip of the iceberg. Wait until you get implanted with the RFID chip that iss already bieng produced by the millions, then the Satelites will look down on you humble abode and watch your activities til you die.
Posted by ToolMangler at 05
Can''t wait for the new ID card!!!!
some have sugggested removing the batteries
will fix it, but it wont be long before even the batteries are trackable.
some have sugggested removing the batteries
will fix it, but it wont be long before even the batteries are trackable.
Posted by Quetzal0666 at 05:30 PM : Apr 01, 2008
Personally, I don''t give a RA who knows what I''m doing, what I want to know is why do they need to know what I''m doing?
They are wasting their time and a lot of money with the "average" American. Certainly not worth the cost for the "few" they may catch in the act of terrorism!
And, if they were going to catch anyone, they would have done so by now, with 800,000 names on the FBI terror-watch list and the illegal wiretapping they''ve been conducting.
All these ideas are presented to our genius leaders and approved with no forethought or plan--shooting from the hip with a "good" idea!
I like big John McCain, he will help keep us safe.
Stay the course big John !!!
What an ugly fence. It does kindof remind you of the Berlin wall. But I guess it doesn''t have to be pretty to be effective. Glad it''s not my property.
I''m not real sure this fence is the answer anyway, but it probably made some of Bush''s friends and some politico''s in the area''s friend rich.
Isn''t American great!?
Stay the course big John !!!
Posted by blackwater66 at 05:39 PM : Apr 01, 2008
You will be flat broke before you are safe...
I remember when ol Bu$hie-Boy stole 700K from the Afghan war and used it to invade Iraq... Broke all kinds of laws that day.
Nuthin new, here.
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Posted by cpaide at 06:08 PM : Apr 01, 2008
First Of All, Comments like this stir up hate. This is the same reason you guys get mad when Mexico''s President Felipe Calderon gives us the ''verbal middle finger'' when he comes here. Mexico is improving, You were just lucky to be born here.
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