House Votes to Erect Fence Along U.S.-Mexico Border

[Boom]

Thursday, September 14, 2006

WASHINGTON — The House voted for the second time in a year to erect a fence along a third of the U.S.-Mexican border, part of a Republican effort to keep illegal immigration an issue before voters.

A new 700 miles of double-layered fencing won approval on a 283-138 vote, a bigger margin than last December when the House passed it as part of a broader bill that also would have made being an illegal immigrant a felony. The nearly 2,000-mile border now has about 75 miles of fencing.

Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., said the separate fence bill was needed to show Americans "we can take meaningful action to secure the border."

The House's bill last December and one passed by the Senate last May are so far apart on issues that Republican leaders haven't even tried to negotiate a compromise.

The main difference is that the Senate bill would provide legal status to millions of illegal immigrants already in the U.S., a concept supported by President Bush but opposed by most House Republicans. The Senate bill calls for 370 miles of fencing along the Mexican border.

Supporters of the new House bill said the new fencing would let Border Patrol agents focus more on apprehending illegal immigrants crossing from Mexico rather than having to man the entire border.

"We have to come to grips with the fact that our Border Patrol agents need a border fence on our southern border ... where we're now facing infiltration by members of terrorist organizations like Hezbollah," said Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif.

The bill passed Thursday doesn't pay for the fence. Republicans, estimating the cost at more than $2 billion, said that will be covered in a later spending bill. Democrats estimated the fence would cost $7 billion, based on information from the Department of Homeland Security on costs per mile of a double-layer fence.

"This is nothing more than political gamesmanship in the run-up to the midterm elections. Sounds good. Does nothing," said Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Fla.

Democrats accused Republicans of playing upon voters' fears to score political points. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, said Republicans were trying to confuse Americans into thinking "Osama Bin Laden is heading north in a sombrero."

The bill also directs the Homeland Security Department to take control of the border in 18 months and gives border agents new authority to stop fleeing vehicles. And it calls for a study of the need for a fence on the U.S.-Canadian border.

Meanwhile, the House Administration Committee approved a bill to make states to ask for photo identification from voters by November 2008 and proof of citizenship by 2010. The full House could vote on it as early as next week.

[TOrrock]

It's about damn time.

[graffex]

This is what I've been saying all along. We need 2 parallel barbwire fence's with an alligator moat running between it maybe some landmines and some machine gun nests every 400 yards. Like to see people try to slip across then.

Seriously, it's about time this country wakes up and does something about the border. It's one of the big issues I have with Bush, he just doesn't seem to care much about the borders.

Also, providing legal status to millions of illegal immigrants already in the U.S. is ludicrous. Get them all the hell out now.

[Boom]

It's about damn time.


Only problem I see is it's to short. :D

[M4arc]

The fence doesn't impress me. If they want to do something about the issue they need to first let BP do their job! The need to protect the land owners from becoming hostages on their own property and they need to authorized the use of force when the Mexican Army escorts drug dealers onto US Property.

They could do all of those things right now to show me they mean business. A fence is just smoke and mirrors. Yes, I'm bitter...

[TOrrock]

The fence doesn't impress me. If they want to do something about the issue they need to first let BP do their job! The need to protect the land owners from becoming hostages on their own property and they need to authorized the use of force when the Mexican Army escorts drug dealers onto US Property.

They could do all of those things right now to show me they mean business. A fence is just smoke and mirrors. Yes, I'm bitter...


Word. :o


Very well said Marc. I have no problem with people coming to this country legally to make a better life.....but the wholesale invasion that we have going on now is unpardonable.

[Submariner]

A fence is just smoke and mirrors. Yes, I'm bitter...

It's not smoke and mirrors; it's PORK!

[Nitrox]

I'll believe it when I see it.

I also don't see why states aren't doing for themselves...

[M4arc]

It's not smoke and mirrors; it's PORK!

I have no idea about the meaning of 'it's pork'.



I'll believe it when I see it.

I also don't see why states aren't doing for themselves...

Arizona has made a few feeble attempts and threatened to do it themselves but it was met with heavy resistance from Washington.

[Submariner]

I have no idea about the meaning of 'it's pork'.


In politics, a pork barrel (or pork barrel politics) is a derogatory term describing government spending that is intended to benefit constituents of a politician in return for their political support, either in the form of campaign contributions or votes. Typically it involves funding for government programs whose economic or service benefits are concentrated in a particular area but whose costs are spread among all taxpayers.

[Voodoochild]

Here is what needs to be mounted on top of the fence. Also need to be mounted on every US installation overseas.

http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/3732/ciwslabelkm9.jpg

[Cyclic240B]

I like the idea of doing something, but the fence is too short, not enough, and too easy to defeat. Now if it had zoned seismic proximity sensors, like the fences we used to protect the Olympic Villiage in Atlanta, we would be getting somewhere. If you even got close or touched that fence, they knew exactly where you were, had you on video camera, and came to investigate.

[graffex]

I don't see how a big fence patrolled by the national guard with machine gun nests every couple hundred yards isn't enough to stop illegals. Where not talking about stoping and Army invasion just some drug smugglers and some fleeing citizens. A fence is a hell of alot better than what we have now :/

I'm curious Cyclic what do you think we should do about the problem?

[HAMMERDROP]

wont deter anybody, the Mexicans have bolt cutters torches and pick-pockets which will defeat that fence as soon as we pay for it and end up stealing it and making shit from it and selling that shit back to the USA on the Invention Channel. Besides by the time its erected the dishrags and limpwrists will probably be back in the White House whining louder than ever and will just charter air conditioned buses for the illegals to come over on.
Serioulsy, what it will cause is some deep reflection when sneeking bastard immigrants see a fellow illegal dangling by his cuffs dead as a door nail from it. That is how the fence will make them go back home ... some ranchers sighting in the deer rifle on our side wouldn't hurt either.

[Submariner]

The Senate won't pass it; they, along with Jorge y Vicente, would rather see this:


Bush Administration Quietly Plans NAFTA Super Highway

by Jerome R. Corsi
Posted Jun 12, 2006

Quietly but systematically, the Bush Administration is advancing the plan to build a huge NAFTA Super Highway, four football-fields-wide, through the heart of the U.S. along Interstate 35, from the Mexican border at Laredo, Tex., to the Canadian border north of Duluth, Minn.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v304/DasBoot56/MegaHwyMap.jpg

Once complete, the new road will allow containers from the Far East to enter the United States through the Mexican port of Lazaro Cardenas, bypassing the Longshoreman’s Union in the process. The Mexican trucks, without the involvement of the Teamsters Union, will drive on what will be the nation’s most modern highway straight into the heart of America. The Mexican trucks will cross border in FAST lanes, checked only electronically by the new “SENTRI” system. The first customs stop will be a Mexican customs office in Kansas City, their new Smart Port complex, a facility being built for Mexico at a cost of $3 million to the U.S. taxpayers in Kansas City.

As incredible as this plan may seem to some readers, the first Trans-Texas Corridor segment of the NAFTA Super Highway is ready to begin construction next year. Various U.S. government agencies, dozens of state agencies, and scores of private NGOs (non-governmental organizations) have been working behind the scenes to create the NAFTA Super Highway, despite the lack of comment on the plan by President Bush. The American public is largely asleep to this key piece of the coming "North American Union" http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=14965 (North American Union) that government planners in the new trilateral region of United States, Canada and Mexico are about to drive into reality.

Just examine the following websites to get a feel for the magnitude of NAFTA Super Highway planning that has been going on without any new congressional legislation directly authorizing the construction of the planned international corridor through the center of the country.

NASCO, the North America SuperCorridor Coalition Inc., is a “non-profit organization dedicated to developing the world’s first international, integrated and secure, multi-modal transportation system along the International Mid-Continent Trade and Transportation Corridor to improve both the trade competitiveness and quality of life in North America.” Where does that sentence say anything about the USA? Still, NASCO has received $2.5 million in earmarks from the U.S. Department of Transportation to plan the NAFTA Super Highway as a 10-lane limited-access road (five lanes in each direction) plus passenger and freight rail lines running alongside pipelines laid for oil and natural gas. One glance at the map of the NAFTA Super Highway on the front page of the NASCO website will make clear that the design is to connect Mexico, Canada, and the U.S. into one transportation system.


Kansas City SmartPort Inc. is an “investor based organization supported by the public and private sector” to create the key hub on the NAFTA Super Highway. At the Kansas City SmartPort, the containers from the Far East can be transferred to trucks going east and west, dramatically reducing the ground transportation time dropping the containers off in Los Angeles or Long Beach involves for most of the country. A brochure on the SmartPort website describes the plan in glowing terms: “For those who live in Kansas City, the idea of receiving containers nonstop from the Far East by way of Mexico may sound unlikely, but later this month that seemingly far-fetched notion will become a reality.”


The U.S. government has housed within the Department of Commerce (DOC) an “SPP office” that is dedicated to organizing the many working groups laboring within the executive branches of the U.S., Mexico and Canada to create the regulatory reality for the Security and Prosperity Partnership. The SPP agreement was signed by Bush, President Vicente Fox, and then-Prime Minister Paul Martin in Waco, Tex., on March 23, 2005. According to the DOC website, a U.S.-Mexico Joint Working Committee on Transportation Planning has finalized a plan such that “(m)ethods for detecting bottlenecks on the U.S.-Mexico border will be developed and low cost/high impact projects identified in bottleneck studies will be constructed or implemented.” The report notes that new SENTRI travel lanes on the Mexican border will be constructed this year. The border at Laredo should be reduced to an electronic speed bump for the Mexican trucks containing goods from the Far East to enter the U.S. on their way to the Kansas City SmartPort.


The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) is overseeing the Trans-Texas Corridor (TTC) as the first leg of the NAFTA Super Highway. A 4,000-page environmental impact statement has already been completed and public hearings are scheduled for five weeks, beginning next month, in July 2006. The billions involved will be provided by a foreign company, Cintra Concessions de Infraestructuras de Transporte, S.A. of Spain. As a consequence, the TTC will be privately operated, leased to the Cintra consortium to be operated as a toll-road.

The details of the NAFTA Super Highway are hidden in plan view. Still, Bush has not given speeches to bring the NAFTA Super Highway plans to the full attention of the American public. Missing in the move toward creating a North American Union is the robust public debate that preceded the decision to form the European Union. All this may be for calculated political reasons on the part of the Bush Administration.

A good reason Bush does not want to secure the border with Mexico may be that the administration is trying to create express lanes for Mexican trucks to bring containers with cheap Far East goods into the heart of the U.S., all without the involvement of any U.S. union workers on the docks or in the trucks.

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=15497

Human Events has never been tin foil stuff. Read the click through sources on the web page.

[graffex]

The Senate won't pass it; they, along with Jorge y Vicente, would rather see this:



Human Events has never been tin foil stuff. Read the click through sources on the web page.

Holy s*** that's the first I've heard of that non-sense. That sounds like a horrible ideal :(

ETA: I found this article on the NASCO website. Perhaps it's not as that article makes it seem. Lets hope not.

http://www.nascocorridor.com/Public_Official_letter.pdf

[graffex]

wont deter anybody, the Mexicans have bolt cutters torches and pick-pockets which will defeat that fence as soon as we pay for it and end up stealing it and making shit from it and selling that shit back to the USA on the Invention Channel. Besides by the time its erected the dishrags and limpwrists will probably be back in the White House whining louder than ever and will just charter air conditioned buses for the illegals to come over on.
Serioulsy, what it will cause is some deep reflection when sneeking bastard immigrants see a fellow illegal dangling by his cuffs dead as a door nail from it. That is how the fence will make them go back home ... some ranchers sighting in the deer rifle on our side wouldn't hurt either.

Regardless we must to do something and do it know. Debating on what to do and saying this wont work and that wont work isn't solving anything. I'd like to see some people try to cut a fence when there is maching gun nests along the fence every hundered yards or so.

[VA_Dinger]

While I do not think it's enough, at the very least it's a start.

If the democrats choose to fight this issue, they are making a serious mistake. Not that the republications are been any better at dealing with this issue though. I do not think the polls adequately show just how pissed off the American people are with illegal immigration.

[graffex]

While I do not think it's enough, at the very least it's a start.

If the democrats choose to fight this issue, they are making a serious mistake. Not that the republications are been any better at dealing with this issue. I do not think the polls adequately show just how pissed off the American people are with illegal immigration.

You hit it right on the head Dinger.

[M4arc]

I read in todays paper that the House only passed the bill, they did not authorized any funding which is estimated to run $2 billion.

However, the house rejected a bill that would include barrier construction, electronic surveillance and expand the border patrol :mad:

What are those jackasses in Washington thinking? I swear they must all check their brains in at the beltway.

[HAMMERDROP]

...tickled a fence is being erected, rmdugan84,
I do believe something desperately needs to be done about the illegal immigrantion problem we have. Better later than never.
I dont want to sound like a bleeding heart, but again I dont want to sound like some Saturday Night ****ing nut from the other channel so I will keep my internal glee to a minimum because I know we have brothers here who may not appreciate my viewpoint.
I was trying a little levity because the way shit is going I will start to cry about the world if I cant laught at it.

[baffle Stack]

You should see the public schools here in NM (k-12). Literally about half the students are Mexicans; they are children of illegals that were born in the States. In fact I remember High school had classes especially geared to them like Spanish Algebra and other various ESL classes. Illegal Mexicans are pretty much ingrained into the New Mexico culture. I asked my mom about it and she says she noticed a huge invasion staring in the ‘80s. I can’t remember a time not being surrounded by Mexicans here in Santa Fe. I guess that invasion never stopped.

I honestly think that the US is too pussy to every properly (forcefully) protect its boarders and that this is just as you guys said…smoke and mirrors. If 9-11-01 wasn’t enough to get the US to protect its boarders, I would hate to see what kind of terrorist attack it would take.

The Mexicans don’t bother me so much. In fact I like them more then most of the liberal hippies in this town. I have never heard of a sleeper cell of Mexicans planning terrorist activities. However I find it too easy for Radical Muslims to get thru our boarders. A lot of them look kind of like Mexicans.