Security First?

by Scott Nicol

The “gang of eight” U.S. Senators, four Democrats and four Republicans, have released a set of principles that they see as the basis for comprehensive immigration reform legislation.  The fact that they are trying to resolve this issue is a positive step, and has the potential to allow millions of people to finally live normal lives, free of fear and exploitation.  But a key component of their plan calls into question whether that promise will ever be realized.

Immigrants’ advocates have long held that a “pathway to citizenship” must be part of any immigration reform plan, allowing those currently in the United States without papers to earn U.S. citizenship. 

Conservative icon Ronald Reagan agreed with this, saying, "I believe in the idea of amnesty for those who have put down roots and lived here, even though sometime back they may have entered illegally."   Today anti-immigrant groups spit out the term “amnesty” as a curse, and many in the current crop of Republican politicians (Texas’ U.S. Senators prominent among them) use it to slander the very idea of allowing the undocumented to become citizens.

Though Cornyn and Cruz present the rejection of earned citizenship as a principled ideological stance, many conservative pundits have pointed out that Hispanics tend to vote for Democrats – 71% voted for Barack Obama – so allowing the 11 million or so mostly, but not entirely, Hispanic undocumented immigrants currently in the U.S. to vote might hurt Republicans in future elections.

Alienating Hispanic voters is costing Republicans elections now, but adding more Hispanic voters could hurt Republicans in the future.  What are they to do?

The answer lies in the “gang of eight” principles. 

The recently unveiled framework makes border security a prerequisite for the issuance of green cards to undocumented immigrants.  After that they could apply for full citizenship, going to the “back of the line.”

Of course the length of that line depends on what country they come from since each nation is assigned a quota; whether they are related by blood or marriage to U.S. citizens; and their income and skills.  For a Mexican national with no family in the United States, no money or special skills, the line that they will be going to the back of is over a century long.

But until the border is declared secure, that hundred-plus-year clock will not start ticking.

The principles released by the “gang of eight” do not define a secure border, so it is impossible to know how many years, how many new Border Patrol agents, how many more drones, how many miles of new border wall, it might take to get there. 

The Senate plan calls for a commission made up of “governors, attorneys general, and community leaders living along the Southwest border“ to determine when the border has been secured. 

Immigrants’ advocates cried foul at the notion that Texas governor Rick Perry and Arizona’s Jan Brewer could hold the citizenship of millions hostage indefinitely by refusing to declare the border secure. 

Perry manages to find money for Highway Patrol speedboats with machine guns mounted on the front to patrol the Rio Grande at the same time as he cuts $4.5 billion from Texas’ schools.  Brewer has committed Arizona’s scarce financial resources to defending SB 1070, the state law intended to make immigrants’ lives so hellish that they “self-deport.” 

Neither are particularly objective in their assessment of the border.

The gang seems to have viewed sacrificing the border to get a bill as a given, and they sold us out so quickly that it never occurred to them that making border security a prerequisite could put citizenship in permanent limbo.

Democratic gang members have responded to the criticism with assurances that the Department of Homeland Security would develop a new, workable definition of a secure border tied to concrete metrics rather than the delusions of Perry and Brewer.  They now say the commission will be strictly advisory.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is certainly further form the lunatic fringe than the governors of Texas and Arizona, but the Department of Homeland Security has a terrible record on the border.

Upon taking office Napolitano refused to halt the condemnation of land and construction of border walls in South Texas and elsewhere.  Early last year her underlings finally succeeded in pressuring the US section of the International Boundary and Water Commission to approve walls in the floodplain at Roma, Rio Grande City, and Los Ebanos, despite the risk to residents on both sides of the river and the damage that the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge and Roma Bluffs World Birding Center will suffer.

Last week Secretary Napolitano spoke in El Paso, ranked the safest big city in the United States for the third year running, and declared that the border is more secure than ever, and that the idea that immigration reform should be held hostage to border security “suffers from a fundamental flaw.” 

Her argument is backed by the numbers.  Border Patrol apprehensions are at a forty year low, and the Pew Research Center has found that net migration from Mexico is effectively at zero, with as many people heading south as north.

So why has her agency continued to push for border walls?  Politics, of course.

At the beginning of her tenure halting border wall construction would have opened up the newly elected President Obama to attacks in the press.  The “gang of eight” likewise assume that throwing the border under the bus is a political necessity to get a bill through Congress, so they do it without hesitation.

Immigration reform should not be held hostage to “border security”, whether it is Perry and Brewer or Napolitano who decide on what that means.  There will always be conflicting political needs that will prevent the honest assessment and agreement that would allow reform to move forward.

When the Senators draft their bill in the coming weeks border security must not be a prerequisite for anything else.  Otherwise real reform will always be just over the horizon, one more agent, one more drone, one more wall away.

Politics is an abstraction, but the actual border consists of real lives and real landscapes.  We are not a bargaining chip for politicians who have never dipped a toe in the Rio Grande, walked a trail in the LRGV National Wildlife Refuge, or looked a South Texas citrus grower in the eye. 

LULAC Opposes DeMint Amendment in the Senate Version of the Homeland Security Appropriations Bill

LULAC Press Release
September 15, 2009

Washington, DC – The League of United Latin American Citizens, the largest and oldest Hispanic civil rights organization in the country, conveys strong opposition to the DeMint amendment included in the Senate version of the Homeland Security Appropriations bill, H.R. 2892 which would require additional several hundred miles of pedestrian fencing along the southern border costing taxpayers approximately $3 billion.

“Our border security remains a national priority but with our budget constraints we face, I believe we need to go about appropriating our resources where they are most needed," said LULAC National President Rosa Rosales. "The Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano has indicated that there are more useful ways of using these resources such as in deploying new surveillance assets, sensors, and tactical infrastructure to the southern border.”

We strongly recommend that the Senate recede to the House on the DeMint amendment, eliminating it from the final bill. Should conferees have the funds available for such a proposal as was approved by the Senate, we recommend that the money be used to strengthen border security at the southern ports of entry, where the nation’s needs are most urgent. There is an investment of $720 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funds to improve security at land ports of entry, including $260 million for new technology and equipment.

We look forward to working with the Senate and House to reconcile both appropriations bills.

The League of United Latin American Citizens advances the economic condition, educational attainment, political influence, housing, health and civil rights of Hispanic Americans through community-based programs operating at more than 700 LULAC councils nationwide.

Will Ciro Rodriguez Stop a New Round of Border Walls?

By Scott Nicol

U.S. Representative Ciro Rodriguez, whose district stretches from San Antonio to the border communities of Eagle Pass, Del Rio, and Presidio, will play a key role in determining whether or not more border walls are built in Texas. After Congress returns from its August recess, Rodriguez will serve on the Conference Committee responsible for reconciling the House and Senate versions of the Department of Homeland Security’s 2010 Appropriations Bill. The Senate’s version contains an amendment requiring the construction of up to 369 miles of new border walls, while the House version makes no mention of walls.

Ignoring the destructive impacts on municipalities, private property, and wildlife refuges that Texas has already suffered, Senators Hutchison and Cornyn both voted for more border walls.

Based on his record, there is hope that, in contrast to Texas’ Senators, Representative Rodriguez will stand up for his constituents and work to strip the border wall amendment from the bill. But a recent action also gives reason for concern.

Standing up for Texas border communities would certainly be welcomed by those in Representative Rodriguez’ district who live along the Rio Grande. Eagle Pass was the first such municipality that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) sued to condemn land for the border wall.

Eagle Pass Mayor Chad Foster has repeatedly criticized the border wall, calling upon DHS to, “halt construction on [this] expensive and useless one-size-fits-all solution to border security. Instead, the [DHS] secretary should be working toward genuine solutions, with input from local and state officials. Only then will we achieve real security along our nation's southern border."

Representative Rodriguez has made efforts to lessen the border wall’s impact and give the Secretary of Homeland Security the latitude to spare Eagle Pass and other border communities. He inserted an amendment into the 2008 supplemental appropriations bill which changed the Secure Fence Act to read,

“nothing in this paragraph shall require the Secretary of Homeland Security to install fencing, physical barriers, roads, lighting, cameras, and sensors in a particular location along an international border of the United States, if the Secretary determines that the use or placement of such resources is not the most appropriate means to achieve and maintain operational control over the international border at such location.''

Since the Congressional Research Service had already determined that border walls have “no discernible impact” on the number of undocumented immigrants and smugglers who cross the border each year, it should have been easy for then-Secretary Chertoff to decide that walls were not the most appropriate means to control the border. Unfortunately, neither he nor current DHS Secretary Napolitano has been willing to take the political heat and halt the construction of more “expensive and useless” walls.

Rep. Rodriguez also joined the rest of Texas’ border representatives in asking President Obama to “suspend construction of border fencing” until a cost-benefit analysis could be conducted and consultation with local stakeholders could be initiated. He also signed on to a letter calling on DHS to monitor the damage caused by the wall and establish a mitigation fund.

So clearly, Rodriguez can be counted on to remove the border wall building amendment from the DHS appropriations bill, right?

Maybe not. In July, Rep. Rodriguez co-sponsored the Secure America with Verification and Enforcement (SAVE) Act. One provision of the SAVE Act states,

“[T]he Secretary shall construct or purchase […] additional fencing (and aesthetic fencing in business districts) in urban areas of the border; and vehicle barriers, to support, not replace, manpower, in rural and remote areas of the border necessary to achieve operational control of the international borders of the United States.”

So despite his prior record of opposing the border wall, Representative Rodriguez is now co-sponsoring a bill that calls for more wall construction, which may cut through the communities he serves.

This earned Representative Rodriguez and the rest of the SAVE Act’s co-sponsors a congratulatory letter from Roy Beck, president of the anti-immigration group NumbersUSA, who said, “It is with highest enthusiasm and expectation that NumbersUSA endorses your re-introduction of the SAVE Act.”

NumbersUSA has been denounced by the Southern Poverty Law Center for its ties to nativist and racist organizations. Roy Beck himself was a longtime editor of the white nationalist publication The Social Contract, and NumbersUSA shares a Washington, DC office with the anti-immigrant group ProEnglish. One would expect that their enthusiastic endorsement would be as welcome as that of the Ku Klux Klan.

Representative Rodriguez’s support for the SAVE Act muddies his record as an advocate for the border communities in his district and begs the question: what will he do in Conference Committee? Will he work to strip border walls from the DHS bill, or allow them to tear through his constituents’ communities? Will he side with Chad Foster, or Roy Beck?

It is possible that Representative Rodriguez’ support for the walls in the SAVE Act is a response to the right wing’s howls that he and Senator Hutchison “gutted” the Secure Fence Act when they gave DHS the flexibility to decide whether or not to wall off a given refuge, community, or family farm. Senator Hutchison has been unable to stand up to the right’s criticism, and has given the border wall unwavering support ever since.

Ultimately, Representative Rodriguez was not elected to serve Roy Beck. Ciro Rodriguez is in Washington DC to represent the interests of Eagle Pass, Del Rio, Presidio, and other communities that are threatened with border wall construction. If he fails to act on their behalf by removing the border wall amendment from the DHS bill, more of his constituents will see border walls tear through their communities.

Building More Border Walls is Not Effective Immigration Reform

By Scott Nicol

In 2006, both the House and Senate passed Comprehensive Immigration Reform bills. Each contained hundreds of miles of border wall, inserted as a bone to lure conservative support. The bills differed on a number of points, including the number of miles of wall to be built. When a conference committee convened to craft a final bill they were unable to work out their differences, and immigration reform died in committee. From its ashes Congress pulled the one thing that they could agree on: 700 miles of border wall.

The stated goal of the Secure Fence Act was to “achieve and maintain operational control over the entire international land and maritime borders of the United States.” Nearly 3 years later, most of the border walls that it mandated are complete. Time to dust off the “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED” banner and hang it on the border?


Apparently not. This month Senator Jim DeMint, whose home state of South Carolina is closer to Canada than Mexico, inserted an amendment into the Senate’s bill funding the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). It changes the Secure Fence Act to say that, “Fencing that does not effectively restrain pedestrian traffic (such as vehicle barriers and virtual fencing) may not be used to meet the 700-mile fence requirement.”

As of July 17, DHS claims to have completed 331 miles of “pedestrian fencing” and 302 miles of vehicle barriers. If DeMint’s amendment makes it through the House/Senate Conference Committee and is signed into law, the border wall will suddenly be 369 miles short of its new mandate. DHS will probably replace many of the 302 miles of vehicle barriers with “pedestrian fence,” inflicting tremendous environmental damage in the process. That leaves at least 67 miles of brand new border wall to be built in places that are currently unwalled. With California, Arizona, and New Mexico largely walled off, those new border walls will most likely be built in Texas.

So far, Congress has given the Department of Homeland Security $3.1 billion for border wall construction. The Army Corps of Engineers reported that between February and October of 2008 the cost of building walls increased by 88%, from an average of $3.5 million per mile to $7.5 million per mile. Some sections of border wall are particularly expensive: the levee-border wall combination in South Texas averaged $12 million per mile; in California, a 3.5 mile section that involved filling in canyons cost taxpayers $57 million.


If the Secure Fence Act succeeded in achieving “operational control” of the border, why should we spend no less than (and quite possibly a lot more than) $2,767,500,000.00 to build 369 miles of new border wall?

First and foremost, the border wall has failed to stop either immigrants or smugglers from entering the United States. The majority enter through ports of entry, rather than crossing the desert on foot or the Rio Grande on an inner tube, so walls erected between the ports have no effect on them. And according to the Border Patrol, even those who find the wall directly in their path are only slowed down by around 5 minutes. As Border Patrol spokesperson Mike Scioli said, “The border fence is a speed bump in the desert.”


Professor Wayne Cornelius, with the University of California at San Diego, has spent more than a decade interviewing immigrants before and after they cross the border. His research has revealed that, even with border walls,

“fewer than half of migrants who come to the border are apprehended, even once, by the Border Patrol. … [T]he apprehension rate found in these studies varied from 24% to 47%. And of those who are caught, all but a tiny minority eventually get through – between 92 and 98 percent, depending on the community of origin. If migrants do not succeed on the first try, they almost certainly will succeed on the second or third try.”

Professor Cornelius goes on to conclude,

“the eventual success rate is virtually the same for migrants whose most recent crossing occurred before 1995, when the border was largely unfortified, and those crossing in the most recent period. In other words, the border enforcement build-up seems to have made no appreciable difference in terms of migrants’ ability to enter the United States clandestinely.”


So why would Senators, ranging from alleged fiscal conservatives such as Texas Republican John Cornyn to New York Democrat Charles Schumer, vote to spend nearly $3 billion on more border walls when those already erected do not work?

Simply put, for those politicians who do not live beside the border, and do not count on the votes of those who do, the border wall is an abstraction. The reality that the border wall has little or no impact on border crossers is irrelevant. The reality that more than 300 property owners have had their property condemned is irrelevant. The reality that federally designated wilderness areas and wildlife refuges have been severely impacted is irrelevant. The Senators who voted for more border walls were voting for a symbol, nothing more.

Even the Department of Homeland Security recognizes this fact. After DeMint’s amendment was adopted, DHS spokesman Matt Chandler told the Wall Street Journal that it is, “designed to prevent real progress on immigration enforcement and [is] a reflection of the old administration's strategy: all show, no substance."

Senator Schumer, who will be introducing a Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill around Labor Day, wrote in an op-ed, “I voted to require the Department of Homeland Security to construct significant fortifications to the border fence” as proof that he is, “serious about securing the border.” He did not bother to defend the effectiveness of the border wall, because that was not the point. The wall that he voted for is simply a symbol, meant to show that immigration reform and border enforcement can go arm in arm.

Senator Schumer seems to think that by voting for more walls, and more than likely including border walls in his Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill, he can appease conservatives like Cornyn and gain their votes. If so, he is deluded. No matter how much of the borderlands the bill sacrifices for the sake of empty gestures, immigration reform will not woo conservatives. It is far more likely that Schumer will instead see a repeat of 2006, in which the only part of Comprehensive Immigration Reform that makes it to the President’s desk is hundreds of miles of border wall.

Our nation desperately needs immigration reform. But as Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said this past February, “you cannot build a fence from San Diego to Brownsville, Texas, and call that an immigration policy.”

It is a message that Congress sorely needs to hear.

City Commissioners Vote to Buy Brownsville a Border Wall

By Scott Nicol

On June 2, the Brownsville City Commission finally capitulated to the Department of Homeland Security’s demand that they give away city property to build the border wall. They had attempted to do this twice before, first last July and again this past February. In both instances the commissioners backed down in the face of widespread opposition from Brownsville residents. This time, however, they stuck with DHS, ignoring the will of the people by voting to give away the city’s land and to commit to build a border wall through Brownsville at the city’s expense. No other city has done so much to help build the border wall.

When the City Commissioners considered this deal last February, they issued a press release praising it, saying that “The City of Brownsville is in the unique position to be the only border city between San Diego, California and the Gulf of Mexico to be offered the ability to remove the federally mandated border fence.” The Commissioners’ spin leaves out the fact that the initial border wall will only be removed after it is replaced with a border wall that will be far more permanent and imposing, and one for which Brownsville taxpayers will foot the entire multi-million dollar bill.

While the contract with DHS has been rewritten, the substance remains the same. The City of Brownsville will give up 15 acres of city property, which DHS valued at $123,100 when it initiated condemnation proceedings last September. The Department of Homeland Security will not pay a dime for the city’s land.

"Floating fence" border wall design in Cameron County, Texas

DHS will then build what they call a “floating fence” on the formerly city-owned property. While the City Commissioners may see the use of this border wall design as a victory, maps of the border wall released by DHS in July 2008 for their Environmental Stewardship Plan (ESP) clearly show “floating fence” on the city’s land. The ESP states, “Floating primary pedestrian fence consists of prefabricated floating fence panels placed on the levee. Floating fences are generally concrete barriers with pickets anchored on top.” This type of border wall has already been erected in parts of western Cameron County. So the floating fence is not a concession on the part of DHS, but what DHS had planned in the first place.

According to the contract, at some indefinite time in the future, the city will pay to build a levee-border wall in another unspecified location to replace the “floating fence.” It stipulates that the city must pay to buy the land for the new levee-border wall, and “construction shall be the responsibility of Brownsville, and shall not be performed by the United States or at any cost to the United States.” The bids for the levee-border walls in Hidalgo County ranged from $12 to $16 million per mile. Placing cost ahead of confidence in the quality of construction of our flood control levees, Hidalgo naturally went with the low bidder. Assuming that Brownsville does the same, the 2-4 miles of levee-border wall that will slice through the city will cost between $24 and $48 million, every dime of which must come from city coffers.

Levee-border wall under construction in Hidalgo County

Once Brownsville constructs the new levee-border wall, DHS will pay to take down the “floating fence.” Maybe. Homeland Security’s promise to pay to take down the first border wall is “subject to the availability of funding.” If they do not have the cash in hand, “then DHS shall provide Brownsville with appropriate access and authority to remove such sections and dispose of the removed material” at the city’s expense.

One new provision in the contract that the City Commission approved states that, “Brownsville shall, at its sole expense, preserve and maintain the Replacement Border Barrier.” So not only will Brownsville’s taxpayers have to pay to build a levee-border wall that none of them want, they must also pay to maintain it for decades to come.

Of course, it is unlikely that Brownsville will be able to come up with all of this money, so the “temporary” border wall will in fact be permanent.

But if they do, and private developers come through with millions more to build a riverwalk, we can look forward to long lines of tourists waiting to show their passports to go through the border wall to reach the trendy restaurants on the other side. What could be more appealing than fine dining in a no-man’s land that the Department of Homeland Security has walled off to keep “terrorists and terrorist weapons” from entering the rest of the United States?

Levee-border wall at the Old Hidalgo Pumphouse World Birding Center in Hidalgo County

Even if everything goes as the City Commission hopes, this deal defies all logic. It is as if someone took away your home, and rather than fight in court to either stop them or force them to pay you its market value of $123,100, you offered to buy them new land and build them a new house that would cost anywhere from $24 to $48 million, and you would then pay to maintain it. Accepting such a deal would certainly put you in a “unique position.”

Yet, this is the deal that Brownsville City Commissioners Anthony Troiani, Edward Camarillo, Ricardo Longoria, and Leo Garza voted to accept. Charlie Atkinson, who is a Border Patrol employee, abstained. Commissioner Carlos Cisneros and Mayor Pat Ahumada voted to reject it.

When public funds are used to build schools, hospitals, or other structures for the benefit of taxpayers, the politicians who approved the project can be counted on attend a ribbon-cutting ceremony and place a plaque telling future generations of their accomplishment. If the City of Brownsville manages to pull funds from schools, hospitals, or other projects to build the levee-border wall, I trust that the City Commissioners who voted for it will be on hand for the dedication ceremony. They can smile and wave and shake hands with the grateful residents of Brownsville, who will sleep better knowing that the border is no longer broken, that floods of terrorists no longer wash over Brownsville, and that it was their City Commission that brought about this shining moment. Engraved on a bronze plaque that will be bolted to the concrete slab of the border wall will be the names:

Anthony P. Troiani

Edward C. Camarillo

Ricardo Longoria

Leo Garza

Supreme Court Fails to Restore the Rule of Law to the Border

The Supreme Court’s refusal to hear arguments that the waiving of all state, local, and federal laws to build the border wall is unconstitutional is a tremendous blow for border residents and the principle of the rule of law. We had hoped that the court would honor its obligation to examine the constitutionality of section 102 of the Real ID Act, which is an unprecedented power grab by the Executive branch, and which creates unequal legal protections for U.S. citizens that are solely dependant upon what part of the country one lives in. In this instance the Supreme Court shirked its duty, leaving the border without the benefit of the rule of law that is enjoyed by the rest of our nation.

Section 102 of the Real ID Act allows for the suspension of all laws to build the border wall, stating, “Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the Secretary of Homeland Security shall have the authority to waive all legal requirements such Secretary, in such Secretary’s sole discretion, determines necessary to ensure expeditious construction of the barriers and roads under this section.” No other United States citizen is granted this extreme power under any circumstance. Even the president does not have this power to waive our nation’s laws, no matter what crisis may arise.

When former Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff waived 36 federal laws in April 2008, he knew that in building border walls he would be violating those laws. Obeying the law is not voluntary, it is mandatory. In a nation of laws all laws must be respected, not just those that are convenient. Those laws were enacted to prevent the kind of damage that we see everywhere border walls have been built.

For plaintiffs such as the Frontera Audubon Society, the Friends of the Wildlife Corridor, and the Friends of Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge, the fate of the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge is of particular concern. Consisting of individual tracts of native habitat linked by the Rio Grande, it creates a wildlife corridor, providing federally endangered species such as the ocelot and jaguarundi sufficient territory to find food, water, and mates. Migratory birds also rely on it to rest and refuel on their annual journeys, as well as for nesting. The border walls that have been built, and those that are still under construction, slice through many refuge tracts and cut off others from the river. The wall is fragmenting habitat, blocking migratory pathways, denying animals access to fresh water, and isolating breeding populations of endangered ocelot and jagurandi. Because the Endangered Species Act, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the National Wildlife Refuge System Administration Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act were among the 36 federal laws that the former Secretary swept aside, none of the usual legal protections for these supposedly protected lands remain.

In addition, Texas border communities depend upon the Rio Grande for irrigation and drinking water. But former Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff waived not only the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Clean Water Act, but also “all federal, state, or other laws, regulations and legal requirements of, deriving from, or related to the subject of” those, and 34 other, laws. So where the wall has been built, in El Paso and Eagle Pass and Hidalgo and Brownsville and other border communities that draw water from the Rio Grande, all laws “related to the subject of” water are no longer in effect. This absurd situation prompted the El Paso County Water Improvement District No. 1 and the Hudspeth County Conservation and Reclamation District No. 1 to take part in the challenge to the constitutionality of the Real ID Act’s waiver authority.

Equal protection under the law is meant to be a fundamental right shared by every American, but the Real ID Act makes the legal rights of citizens who live near the border conditional on the whims of an unelected Administration appointee. The Secretary of Homeland Security cannot waive the laws that protect citizens who live away from the border. Only border residents may have their legal protections waived.

When the Supreme Court decided not to hear these arguments without uttering so much as a word as to why, they shirked their duty as the final arbiters of the United States constitution and the principle of the rule of law that it enshrines. This precedent bodes ill for the rest of the nation, as any manufactured crisis may be used to enact a similar waiver. A “broken” northern border may be the pretext for a new bill waiving laws along the Canadian boundary, or an “energy crisis” may provide a convenient excuse to do away with laws that prevent drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The Supreme Court’s inaction will likely have repercussions beyond the destruction wrought by the border wall.

Secretary Napolitano Must End DHS’ Abuse of Texas Border Communities

By Stefanie Herweck

Over the past two years, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the organizations that it manages, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the Border Patrol, have shown a deep-seated indifference to the welfare of those of us living on the Texas-Mexico border. These agencies have treated our elected leaders with disrespect, they have assumed an adversarial relationship with the public, and they have shown disdain for border communities, culture, and the environment. These actions have seriously undermined DHS’s credibility along the Texas border and have fostered a great deal of antagonism.

The border wall is the clearest example of this. The border wall project has been propelled by a blind determination to build as many miles of wall as possible regardless of cost, safety, effectiveness, and environmental damage. It has been shrouded in secrecy, and DHS has purposely obfuscated time and time again, as though border residents have no right to know what is happening in their communities and even on their own property.

Levee-border wall in Hidalgo County, Texas February 22, 2009

In June 2007, they started with a lie to the Texas Border Coalition. Texas border mayors and other community leaders were assembled to hear details about the border walls that would run through their cities. Border Patrol Chief David Aguilar told them that he could give them few details because even though he had attended the signing ceremony for the Secure Fence Act nine months earlier, the border wall plans were still sketched on “the backs of napkins.” At the exact same time in another location, the Border Patrol held a private meeting with landowners, during which detailed maps of the proposed route of the wall were displayed.

DHS lied again in order to comply with legislation that requires local consultation. When ask to submit proof of the “18 town hall meetings” that they claimed to have held, they listed random phone calls and lunch meetings with single individuals, but no actual town hall meetings.

Then, in the ultimate act of negligence, DHS decided that border residents should not be protected by the laws that govern the rest of the country, and Bush Administration Secretary Chertoff waived 36 federal laws in order to slam the border wall through the Texas borderlands regardless of its impact on public safety and the environment. The Safe Drinking Water Act, National Environmental Policy Act, and others that protect the rest of the nation no longer apply where the wall is being built.

Border wall "pickets" in front of the wall in El Calaboz, Texas March 14, 2009

Yet another DHS policy revealed this same disregard for public safety. Shortly before hurricane season last year, the news broke that in the event of a hurricane making landfall in the Rio Grande Valley, the Border Patrol intended to check documents of every Valley resident seeking to evacuate or seeking entrance into a shelter. According to Border Patrol’s plans, anyone without the proper documentation would be immediately arrested and placed in a detention facility.

Worried that this policy would cause a bottleneck at the checkpoints and the unjustified arrests of citizens fleeing in haste without documents, border leaders and residents decried the practice. Advocates for colonias complained that it unfairly risked the safety of the poor, elderly, and those with limited English who would be afraid to evacuate. Since many people would be unwilling to leave their undocumented family members, this policy could mean many thousands of people left in the path of a deadly storm.

In the face of criticism that DHS was willing to put so many human lives in jeopardy, and the perception that they might even be taking advantage of a natural disaster to make more arrests, Secretary Chertoff downplayed the policy and said that the Border Patrol would not impede evacuations. However, when Hurricane Dolly bore down on the Rio Grande Valley in July 2008, the Border Patrol continued to arrest undocumented immigrants who tried to pass through the checkpoints.

Although there has been a change in administration, the agency is still primarily staffed by the same officials that crafted and implemented DHS's stance during the last administration. Among them is the CBP employee who in February gave the Brownsville City Commissioners an arbitrary deadline to accept a border wall deal. The deadline was later repudiated by Secretary Napolitano, who had not been informed of it, after U.S. Representative Ortiz intervened on Brownsville’s behalf.

Under the Obama administration, DHS has also maintained its indifference toward the landowners whose properties are being directly affected by the construction of the border wall. Having long refused to provide landowners and their elected officials with a detailed border wall plans, they sabotaged yet another opportunity to explain where and how the wall will be built when they refused to “walk the line” with the Texas Border Coalition in February. DHS said that they were willing to visit a very few of the properties where the border wall would be built with TBC, but the property owners must be kept away.

Border wall behind a home in Cameron County, Texas March 14, 2009

In perhaps the ultimate act of disrespect to landowners, as well as evidence of sheer incompetence and unprofessionalism, last week brought news that DHS usurped one Cameron County resident’s property for the border wall without a contract and without offering compensation. Eva Lambert woke up one morning to find the border wall being constructed across her backyard. It wasn’t until after the wall on her property was finished that she was visited by a DHS official.

Given this track record, it is no surprise that Texas border residents are suspicious of DHS’s latest scheme to eradicate Carrizo cane by aerially spraying an herbicide in Laredo. This proposed spraying project is certainly following the modus operandi of DHS under the Bush Administration. There was a mere one-day public comment period on the Environmental Assessment for the project last summer, and that assessment itself was not made available online until last month, 2 days after the Laredo City Council had granted Customs and Border Protection an easement to spray. CBP attempted to move up the timeline for spraying from June 2009, as stated in the Environmental Assessment, to immediately. And they did not bother to consult with the City of Nuevo Laredo across the border in Mexico, whose drinking water intake is immediately downstream from the spraying area. The rejection of meaningful public input, the headlong push to implement a controversial project as quickly as possible, and the apparent disregard for the health and safety of Texas and Mexico border residents are all hallmarks of DHS’s operations along the border.

This behavior reinforces the widespread notion in Texas border communities that the Department of Homeland Security is an agency motivated by politics and ideology rather than the facts on the ground and the welfare of citizens. Unless and until DHS, CBP and Border Patrol transform the way that they operate on the border, unless and until they show real sensitivity to border communities and real stewardship to border natural areas, their operations and projects will continue to be regarded with a high degree of suspicion and even hostility on the Texas border. This will certainly undermine their ability to fulfill their mission to protect the United States.

Secretary Napolitano must begin immediately to mend the broken relationship between DHS and border residents. This will require an attitude shift across the entire agency: DHS must recognize that for millions of people, the borderlands are the homeland. Instead of viewing the border as the frontline in a war zone, Secretary Napolitano needs to instill in her agency the understanding that the people who live on the border are entitled to the same rights and privileges, and due the same protections, as those who live in any other part of the United States. Proximity to the Rio Grande does not dissolve our constitutional guarantees to private property or equal protection under the law.

Secretary Napolitano will have little success in reversing the Department’s abusive practices until she replaces the ideologues that her predecessor hired. Even as she speaks to Congress and in the press about bringing change to DHS, holdovers from the last administration tell Congress and the press that there will be no change. So long as they are willing to go so far as to issue ultimatums on behalf of the Department of Homeland Security without bothering to inform its new leadership, any positive changes that she wishes to make will dissipate before they make it from Washington, D.C. to border communities.

Tremendous damage to the Texas borderlands has already been done by former Secretary Chertoff, but in a few places it is not too late to stop border wall construction and thereby signal that change is real and profound, rather than just a campaign slogan. Where the wall has not yet been built because condemnation lawsuits are still in court, DHS should drop its court case and enter into meaningful negotiations.

Finally, if Secretary Napolitano truly sees the defense of our nation’s laws as a fundamental part of her new job she should rescind former Secretary Chertoff’s Real ID Act waivers and restore the rule of law to the Texas border. It is absurd to claim that immigration rules supersede every other law that has been passed by Congress or the states. It is offensive to claim that living near the border strips U.S. citizens of legal protections that are enjoyed by the rest of the nation. Secretary Napolitano must defend all U.S. citizens and all U.S. laws, and repudiate Secretary Chertoff’s practice of picking and choosing which to prioritize and which to ignore.

The new Administration has a tremendous opportunity to reverse the Bush administration’s abuses, and to begin to repair the damage that was done. But they must act immediately. Right now, landowners are facing condemnation proceedings. Right now, construction crews from South Texas to San Diego are erecting border walls. Right now, laws that should protect border residents are suspended. We have yet to see the change that we have been promised, and that we so desperately need.

Texas Calls Upon DHS Secretary Napolitano to Bring an End to the Border Wall

Secretary Janet Napolitano
United States Department of Homeland SecurityWashington, D.C. 20528

January 20, 2009

Dear Secretary Napolitano,

At the same time as Barak Obama is taking the oath of office, workers are pouring concrete and welding steel to build the border wall. Today, walls slice through more than 500 miles of our borderlands. As Governor of Arizona, you are certainly aware of both the inefficacy of the wall and its tremendous financial costs. Surely you are aware of the thousands of undocumented migrants who have died in Arizona’s deserts, and the species being driven to extinction by Arizona’s border wall. Those of us who live in Texas hope that you will also take into account the wall’s tremendous toll along our border, and that you will reverse your predecessor’s policies and bring an immediate end to border wall construction.

The overwhelming majority of Texas border residents oppose the border wall, because we can see firsthand the destruction that it is causing without bringing the slightest benefit. If its impacts on the border and the nation as a whole were as positive as outgoing Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff has claimed, there would be overwhelming support for the wall. If the southern border was in fact being overrun by terrorists and smugglers who were causing us to live in a state of constant fear, and the wall was a viable solution to such a dire situation, there would be no need to pursue hundreds of land condemnation lawsuits. We would gather at the riverside with trowels and welding torches in hand to help build it.

But we know that the border wall will not save us from threats dreamed up by politicians in Washington, DC who have never seen the Rio Grande. The wall does not even stop those who enter the U.S. to find work. Del Rio, Texas, Border Patrol Chief Randy Hill said, “We're going to see steel barriers erected on the borders where U.S. and Mexican cities adjoin. These will slow down illegal crossers by minutes.” He said nothing about stopping crossers, only slowing crossers down by “minutes.” We are not willing to sacrifice homes, farms, and wildlife refuges for a speed bump.

Instead, a broad cross-section of border residents has come together in opposition to the border wall. The Texas Border Coalition, made up of mayors, judges, and elected officials all along Texas’ border with Mexico has been outspoken in its rejection of walls, and has fought in court to defend the Texas border from further construction. Numerous municipalities have passed resolutions opposing the border wall. The Lone Star Sierra Club Chapter has passed a resolution opposing the border wall, and has worked to draw attention to its tremendous environmental costs. Bishop Peña of the Catholic Diocese of Brownsville spoke at a No Border Wall rally, as have a number of mayors and Texas State Representatives.

The Cameron County Commissioners Court passed a resolution which sums up much of the sentiment along Texas’ southern border, saying in part,

"Proponents of the fence, who are not residents of the border region, have wrongly used the construction of a fence as a rhetorical device to transform the issue of immigration from an economic concern to a matter of international relations and national security, and to transfer responsibility for alleged defects in United States immigration policy and enforcement from the United States government to the government of Mexico."

Those of us who live along the border are not willing to see our land condemned, our communities divided, and our parks and wildlife refuges destroyed, for a rhetorical device.

The No Border Wall coalition has circulated a petition that reads,

We oppose the construction of a solid wall along more than 700 miles of the United States / Mexico border. A wall that tears through border communities will cause terrible economic damage, impacting agriculture, ecotourism, retail sales, and private property. It will cause grave social harm, separating families and sending a terrible message to our neighbors. The route specified by the Secure Fence Act of 2006 will take it through National Wildlife Refuges, other parks, and riparian habitat critical for the survival of migrating birds as well as threatened and endangered species. The border wall will cost billions of dollars and even the Department of Homeland Security has said that it will only slow down, not stop, people who cross the border illegally.

To date, 6,501 people have signed this petition. Most are residents of Texas border communities who will be directly impacted by the border wall. This is not an abstraction, a symbol, or a rhetorical device to us. This is our lives. Our families, our children, and our grandchildren will be forced to live in the shadow of a wall that we abhor so that politicians who will never visit our communities can give their voters a false sense of security.

Thanks to last year’s Omnibus spending bill, you will have the authority to either double the current length of the border wall or immediately halt construction. Outgoing Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff used these powers to condemn private property, decimate wildlife corridors, and build mile upon mile of useless border wall. His retirement was celebrated from Brownsville, Texas, to Tucson, Arizona.

Secretary Napolitano, Texas border communities call upon you to embody the “change” that Barak Obama campaigned on. You must have the courage to speak truthfully to the American people, to admit that we are not safer for having built hundreds of miles of border wall, and our national security will not be enhanced by building another mile or one hundred miles or even one thousand miles. You should restore the rule of law along the border by rescinding the waivers of 36 federal laws that Michael Chertoff issued in order to build border walls. We ask you to shift the Department of Homeland Security’s funds and priorities away from empty gestures and political grandstanding, and bring an end to the border wall.

Chertoff’s Billion Dollar Speedbump Should Be Obama’s First Budget Cut

By Scott Nicol

On the day that Barak Obama takes the oath of office workers will be pouring concrete and welding steel to extend the border wall. Today, walls slice through 378 miles of our borderlands. The Secure Fence Act calls for roughly double that amount. As president, it will be up to Obama to decide whether the costs, in terms of billions of dollars spent and homes, farms, communities, and wildlife refuges torn apart, is justified. He recently said that with two foreign wars, hundreds of billions of dollars pledged to the financial bailout, and trillions of dollars in national debt, projects that “bleed billions of dollars” without benefiting the nation will have to be cut. The border wall should top that list.

All of the imagined benefits of the border wall flow from the assumption that if walls are built they will stop illegal traffic from entering the U.S. Some politicians claim that building 700 miles of wall along our 1,933 mile long southern border, while ignoring the 3,987 mile long northern border and 12,479 miles of coastline, will somehow allow the Department of Homeland Security to realize the Secure Fence Act’s goal, to “achieve and maintain operational control over the entire international land and maritime borders of the United States.”



In fact, the Border Patrol’s own statistics show that border walls have not brought about a decrease in illegal entries. The border patrol uses the number of border crossers apprehended in a given sector to gauge the overall number of attempted crossings. Apprehensions dropped dramatically between 2005, the year before the Secure Fence Act was passed, and 2007, the year after. But the decrease did not occur in areas where border walls had been built. On the contrary, the greatest reductions in apprehensions, which according to the Border Patrol would indicate a successful strategy for stopping undocumented immigration, were seen in sectors that did not have walls. Texas’ Rio Grande Valley sector saw a 45.3% decrease in apprehensions, bringing them to a 15 year low. The Del Rio sector saw a 66.5% decrease. Neither sector had an inch of border wall before 2008. In sectors such as Tucson, which saw walls built shortly after the passage of the Secure Fence Act, the reduction in apprehensions began before any cement was poured. The areas that saw an increase in crossings were California’s San Diego and El Centro sectors, both of which have had border walls for over a decade. At the same time that the unwalled border witnessed dramatic decreases in crossings, heavily fortified San Diego saw a 20.1% increase.

Long before the Secure Fence Act was written it was clear that border walls did not reduce the number of people entering the United States. In looking at the number of crossers apprehended by the Border Patrol between 1992 and 2004, when walls were being erected in the San Diego sector, the Congressional Research Service found that there was no change. They concluded that, “While the increased enforcement in the San Diego sector has resulted in a shift in migration patterns for unauthorized aliens, it does not appear to have decreased the overall number of apprehensions made each year by USBP agents.” Would-be immigrants were not stopped by the border wall; they simply went around it.


Two months before the passage of the Secure Fence Act, Wayne Cornelius, Director of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at the University of California-San Diego told the House Judiciary Committee that,

“tightened border enforcement since 1993 has not stopped nor even discouraged unauthorized migrants from entering the United States. Even if apprehended, the vast majority (92-97%) keep trying until they succeed. Neither the higher probability of being apprehended by the Border Patrol, nor the sharply increased danger of clandestine entry through deserts and mountainous terrain, has discouraged potential migrants from leaving home.”

The assertion that more walls will allow the U.S. to “secure” its southern border is therefore false. Spokespersons for the Border Patrol tend to describe them much more modestly. Del Rio, Texas, Border Patrol Chief Randy Hill said, “We're going to see steel barriers erected on the borders where U.S. and Mexican cities adjoin. These will slow down illegal crossers by minutes.” He says nothing about stopping crossers, or allowing the Border Patrol to “achieve and maintain operational control” of the border, but only slowing crossers down by “minutes.” As Border Patrol spokesperson Mike Scioli said, “The border fence is a speed bump in the desert.”


The false sense of security that the border wall brings comes with a real price tag. In 2007 the Congressional Research Service estimated that the border wall could cost as much as $49 billion to build and maintain. Since then the costs of construction have risen dramatically. Between February and October of 2008, the Army Corps of Engineers reported that the cost of building border walls had increased by 88%, from an average of $3.5 million per mile to $7.5 million per mile. The cost of building vehicle barriers on the border increased by 48%, to $2.8 million per mile. Some sections of border wall are particularly expensive: the walls that are being inserted into the levees in South Texas are averaging $12 million per mile; in California, a 3.5 mile section that involves filling a canyon with 2.5 million yards of earth torn from adjacent mountains so that the wall will not have to dip down into it will cost taxpayers $57 million. In 2008, the Department of Homeland Security asked Congress to allocate an additional $400 million for border wall construction, because the $2.7 billion already spent was not enough to finish out the year.

Arizona governor Janet Napolitano has been named as President-elect Obama’s choice for Secretary of Homeland Security. From her first day on the job she must embody the “change” that Barak Obama campaigned on. Napolitano must have the courage to speak truthfully to the American people, to admit that we are not safer for having built hundreds of miles of border wall, and our national security will not be enhanced by building another mile or one hundred miles or even one thousand miles. She should restore the rule of law on the border by rescinding the waivers of 36 federal laws that Michael Chertoff issued in order to build border walls. Thanks to last year’s Omnibus spending bill, she will have the authority to either double the current length of the border wall or immediately halt construction. Chertoff has used these powers to condemn private property, decimate wildlife corridors, and build mile upon mile of useless border wall. Napolitano should shift the Department of Homeland Security’s funds and priorities away from empty gestures and political grandstanding, and bring an end to the border wall.