New Study: Border Hysteria Imperils Wildlife

by Dan Millis

In a Congress plagued by immigration hysteria, none is more gravely afflicted than South Carolina’s Republican Senator Jim DeMint. Twice in two weeks he added border pork to Senate bills, both times calling for 300-plus miles of walls to be imposed between the U.S. and Mexico. These are the fourth and fifth times in less than two years that he has made such attempts.

Delirious and angry lawmakers like DeMint seem oblivious to the 650 miles of barriers and walls that already occupy the Southwest’s borderlands, exacting high costs on taxpayers and public lands. Another side effect these lawmakers suffer is an acute indifference to the impacts caused by their border madness.

A new study in the Diversity and Distributions journal identifies 49 species put most at risk by border walls and areas of intensive human land use along the U.S.-Mexico border. The study only considers amphibian, reptile, and non-volant (don't fly) mammal species, and identifies California, the Sky Islands, the Gulf Coast as the three regions most heavily impacted.

One unique aspect of this study is that it doesn’t just look at current impacts wrought by existing border walls and areas with a heavy human footprint. Potential future impacts from border wall expansions such as those proposed by DeMint are also taken into consideration, and the results are sobering:

This graph from the study shows a horizontal base line representing our 2,000 mile border with Mexico. The three faint vertical lines in the left half of the graph represent the state borders between California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. The fatter horizontal line sitting atop the baseline shows where the taller “pedestrian” (10-25 feet tall) border walls are located along the border.

Then there is the vertical ‘species’ scale, which includes only species from the sample set that have already been listed as threatened, either binationally or by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. The dashed line represents how many of these already-threatened species are put in grave danger by existing “pedestrian” border walls in each geographic location along the border. You’ll notice that there are few such species, which may be expected when working with such a small sample set of species to begin with.

However, the solid line is much less benign, with the number of vulnerable species spiking most dramatically here in Arizona (to the right [East] of first faint vertical line [CA-AZ border]). This line represents the number of already threatened species that would be pushed to the brink if proposals like DeMint’s were passed and border walls came to occupy even more precious habitat.

A key finding of the study states, "The REAL ID Act should be amended to reinstate environmental regulation of border security efforts." The REAL ID waiver of more than 30 vital federal protection laws along the border allowed walls to be built in violation of the Wilderness Act, the Endangered Species Act, and more.

Dan Millis is a Sierra Club Borderlands campaign organizer. To learn more about the Sierra Club's Borderlands Campaign visit http://sierraclub.org/borderlands/

Climbing the Border Wall

A recent video clip showing two young women scaling the border wall in under 20 seconds has gone viral. The video was shot by a crew working on the film The Other side of Immigration, in what appears to be the Arizona desert. FOX and other media outlets have done stories on it, and as of today it has been watched 456,602 times on Youtube.

Here is the clip:




Most of the responses have been a mix of surprise and amusement that a federal project that has soaked up over $3 billion, and has involved more than 400 condemnation suits against landowners and the waiving of 36 federal laws would be so easy to overcome.

It should not surprise anyone.

Climbing the San Diego "triple fence." Photo by Laura Garcia.

Bush administration Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff said in 2007, "I think the fence has come to assume a certain kind of symbolic significance which should not obscure the fact that it is a much more complicated problem than putting up a fence which someone can climb over with a ladder or tunnel under with a shovel."




Clip from the documentary The Wall.

Climbing the border wall in the Otay Mountain Wilderness Area while Border Patrol agents look on. Photo by Italia Milan.

Border Patrol spokesperson Mike Scioli said, "The border fence is a speed bump in the desert."

But that is likely giving it too much credit. In this clip former President Bush is giving an interview in front of the border wall, discussing the efficacy of his border security measures. Just over his shoulder a group of immigrants jump the wall:



Before the border walls that President Bush touted were built, Del Rio, Texas, Border Patrol Chief Randy Hill predicted, "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 made no claim that they would stop anyone.

Photo from a Time Magazine article titled "The Great Wall of America."

The border wall has been a farce since its inception. Forget the "danged fence." It is time to admit that the emperor has no clothes, and address immigration reform and substance abuse in a rational manner.

The New Congress Will Try to Build More Border Walls

By Scott Nicol

I generally refrain from making New Year’s predictions, but following the mid-term elections one thing has been crystal clear: barring divine intervention or a grass-roots outcry loud enough to drown out the Tea Party, the new Congress will pass legislation requiring hundreds of miles of new border walls.

In the final days of the Congressional “lame duck” session Democrats struggled to line up votes in the Senate to pass the DREAM Act, which would have provided a path to citizenship for those who had been brought into the United States as minors, and who completed two years of college or military service. Hoping to bring Republicans on board, slots were left open for two Republican amendments, should the bill make it to the Senate floor.

Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC).

Republican Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina took one of those slots for an amendment that would change the Secure Fence Act to require 700 miles of “pedestrian” border walls; vehicle barriers built along the border could no longer be applied to the mile count. Currently, 302 miles of vehicle barriers are included in the Department of Homeland Security’s official total of 646 miles of border wall. DeMint’s amendment would require Customs and Border Protection to build 356 miles of new “pedestrian” wall. With “pedestrian” walls averaging $7.5 million per mile, this could cost taxpayers $2,670,000,000. And with California, Arizona, and New Mexico largely walled off, most of those miles would come to Texas.

Passage of the DREAM Act should have been fairly easy, as many Republican Senators had supported it in the past. Ten years ago Republican Senator Orin Hatch actually co-wrote the DREAM Act. Before he voted against his own creation this year, his spokesperson simply said, “Times have changed.”

The need for immigration reform has not changed. What has changed is the political landscape, particularly in the Republican Party. Where once Karl Rove cautioned against alienating Hispanic voters, the hard tack to the right brought on by the Tea Party has convinced Republicans that support of immigration reform could cost them their next election. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who had planned to coauthor Comprehensive Immigration Reform with Democratic Senator Charles Schumer in early 2010, said at the end of the same year, "There's no way I can go to the people in South Carolina and say, 'Let's pass the Dream Act,' when we've done nothing on the border and there's a raging war in Mexico."

When Senator Graham says “we’ve done nothing on the border” he knows full well that the opposite is true. The Government Accountability Office presented a report to Congress in November of 2010 that stated,

“Border Patrol agents staffed along the U.S. borders have increased from 11,264 in 2005 to 20,161 as of June 2010, with 2,139 agents staffed on the northern border and 17,089 agents staffed on the southwest border. In regard to infrastructure, CBP’s SBI office reported that as of April 2010, it had completed 646 of the 652 miles of border fencing—including pedestrian fencing and permanent vehicle barriers—that it committed to deploy along the southwest border.”


Bollard border wall in California. Photo by Jay Johnson Castro.

The myth that borders can be made airtight through the construction of hundreds of miles of border wall or the doubling of Border Patrol agents should have been laid to rest by the fact that after these things were done the cries from politicians that the borders are broken are louder than ever.

Republicans voted in lock-step to prevent the DREAM Act from reaching the floor of the Senate. Even Senator DeMint, who planned to attach his amendment to it, voted against even debating the bill.

DeMint’s proposed amendment to the DREAM Act is identical to the one that he successfully attached to the Department of Homeland Security’s appropriation bill in 2009. Texas Senators Cornyn and Hutchison voted in favor of the 2009 amendment, as they have for every border wall bill that has come before them. But because there was not a matching amendment in the House version of the bill Representative Ciro Rodriguez (D-TX) was able to remove it in the House -Senate conference committee.

Once the new Congress is sworn in the House of Representatives will no longer act as a brake on Senator DeMint’s desire to build more border walls. Ciro Rodriguez lost his reelection bid, and, thanks in part to the success of Tea Party candidates, Republicans will control the House. In addition to new members like Ben Quayle (R-AZ) who put militarizing the border front and center in their campaigns, the next Congress will see some of the border wall’s biggest backers chairing key House committees.


Signing ceremony for the Secure Fence Act of 2006

Peter King (R-NY) will be the new chair of the House Homeland Security Committee. He wrote the Secure Fence Act, which mandated the hundreds of miles of wall that now slice through border communities, farms, and wildlife refuges. In the White House photo of the Secure Fence Act signing ceremony he can be seen looking over President Bush’s shoulder, smiling from ear to ear. Last week he told the New York Post that, “The Obama Administration continues to display an obvious lack of urgency when it comes to operational control of the border.” He went on to list border walls as an important tool for gaining control.

The House Judiciary Committee, which oversees immigration laws and legislation, will be chaired by Texas Republican Lamar Smith. Lamar Smith was a vocal backer of the Secure Fence Act. He also co-sponsored a 2008 “English-only” bill, and supported an amendment forbidding the US government from telling the Mexican government about the activities of Minuteman border vigilantes. This past October he wrote an op-ed for FOX News, saying that, “If we want to prevent another terrorist attack, we must prevent terrorists from getting to the U.S. in the first place. That means finishing the border fence and giving Border Patrol all the necessary resources to keep our borders safe.” Apparently Rep. Smith missed the 9/11 Commission’s finding that none of the September 11 terrorists entered the U.S. by crossing a land border.

Iowa Republican Steve King is expected to lead the Judiciary Committee’s Immigration Subcommittee. In 2006 Rep. King assembled a model of the border wall during Congressional debate on the Secure Fence Act and suggested running electric current through it, saying, “we do this with livestock all the time.” Last month King said that as Immigration Subcommittee Chair he planned to conduct a formal review of the Obama Administration’s spending on border enforcement and push for construction of new border walls. He told the New York Times, “Build it until they stop going around the end – that would be my standard.”



Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) builds his wall on the House floor

Rep. Smith and the two Kings, along with Senator DeMint, are so enamored with the idea of a border wall that they have not bothered to look at whether the wall actually prevents immigrants, smugglers, or terrorists from entering the United States. Even Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which Congress tasked with building walls, cannot say whether or not they do anything. The November Government Accountability Office report found that, “As of May 2010, CBP had not assessed the effect of fencing on border security.”

But that will not stop Senator DeMint from reintroducing his amendment next year. The Senate passed it in 2009, and although Democrats will still control the chamber it will be more conservative now than it was then. Senator DeMint was an early and ardent backer of Tea Party candidates, and they will be anxious to return the favor by supporting his bill. And with Republicans in charge of the House of Representatives, Ciro Rodriguez gone, and the key committees in the hands of Representatives who have long histories of supporting border walls, the DeMint amendment is all but assured of passage there as well.

Once it passes the House and Senate, it will be up to President Obama to decide whether or not more walls are built. Will he veto an entire bill (perhaps the Department of Homeland Security’s appropriation) to stop border walls? That would mean a head-on fight with Republicans over an issue that he has so far chosen to avoid. As Governor of Arizona, Janet Napolitano famously said, “You show me a 50-foot wall, and I'll show you a 51-foot ladder." But as President Obama’s Secretary of Homeland Security, she failed to bring border wall construction to a halt.

The decision will come down to politics. If Democrats in the House and Senate oppose the DeMint amendment and vote against it, President Obama might oppose it as well. If it passes with Democratic support and votes, he will sign it.

So in looking ahead do we succumb to fatalism, and accept that eventually walls will stretch unbroken from the Pacific to the Gulf of Mexico, cutting off South Texas from the river that slakes its thirst, waters its crops, and anchors its wildlife refuges? Or do we work to change the political dynamic that pushes for more and more and more border walls?

When Senator DeMint reintroduces his border wall amendment in 2011 most of the politicians who will vote for or against it represent districts that are hundreds of miles away from the border. Their votes will be based on opinion polls and political expediency, not an understanding of border security or concern for border communities. Senators Hatch and Graham voted against the DREAM Act not because they believed that it was a bad bill, but because they believed that supporting it would be bad politics. When the political winds changed, their votes changed.

The Tea Party was successful in changing the political landscape not just because they had the backing of FOX News and Koch Industries. They were also very loud. They made so much noise that their ideas, no matter how far off the deep end, became impossible to ignore. They shaped the political debate, and then they turned out to vote.

If we want to prevent the construction of more border walls we need to be just as loud, and make it clear that politicians who support more walls will be less likely to return to Washington after the next election. In the end, a politician’s vote on border walls is about job security, not border security.

Border War Rhetoric Has Real Consequences for the Borderlands

By Stefanie Herweck

This week Texas Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst addressed an assembly of border residents and community leaders in Harlingen, Texas, less than 15 miles from the Rio Grande, and proclaimed that there was a war going on along the border. His assessment of the border was extreme: “We have two wars everyone talks about going on, one is in Iraq and one is in Afghanistan. We’ve got a third going on and that’s the border.”

Dewhurst made this announcement in the keynote speech for State Senator Eddie Lucio’s State of the District Address. With Senator Lucio looking on, Dewhurst went on to make his case for war on the border, speaking in vague terms about “transnational gangs,” “drug lords killing Americans,” and “border violence,” but providing little in the way of concrete details. He urged that more law enforcement be deployed in order to “close down this border.”

Dewhurst’s comparison of the U.S.-Mexico border region to war-torn Iraq and Afghanistan is offensive and absurd. His characterization of a border at war is based on ignorant hysteria instead of reality. And his portrayal of the border region as the dangerous fount of criminal activity for the rest of the state and the country is categorically false.

When pressed in an interview after the speech to provide the details that would support his claims, Dewhurst said, “We’ve seen incidence of gangs, drive by shootings, in Wichita Falls, which is a long way from the border.” The Lieutenant Governor is right about one thing here: 600 miles between Wichita Falls and the Texas-Mexico border is a long way. But declaring war on the border in order to fight crime in Wichita Falls is ludicrous.

Especially because most Texas border cities are actually safer than Wichita Falls. Although Wichita Falls has 30,000 fewer people than the border city of McAllen, its crime rate in 2008 was higher than McAllen’s. According to FBI statistics, Wichita Falls had 557 incidences of violent crime in 2008, while McAllen only had 371. El Paso was ranked as the third safest large city in the United States in the same year. And all of these cities saw a decrease in violent crime from 2007 to 2008, as did the nation as a whole. Dewhurst’s perverse fantasy of a chaotic crime-ridden border simply does not match the relatively peaceful day-to-day border reality.

In his speech, Dewhurst also cited briefings he has received from the Department of Public Safety and other law enforcement. When asked to elaborate on these briefings after his speech, he cited no official reports or criminological studies, but said “Virtually every city I go into I talk to the DPS and I talk to the local police and they have all seen a pick up of gang activity that they feel is related to drug cartels in Mexico.” While the views of law enforcement officers around the state are valuable, it is irresponsible to make policy recommendations based on their “feelings” rather than hard facts.

Furthermore, Dewhurst has apparently failed to consult with law enforcement officials in the border region. When interviewed by NPR this spring, Brownsville Police Chief Carlos Garcia noted that there had only been 3 homicides in his city in 2008, and that none of them were related to drug cartels. In the same article McAllen Police Chief Victor Rodriguez provided some perceptive analysis that Dewhurst should heed: “The sky is not falling,” he said, refuting unfounded statements by pundits and politicians that cartel violence was spilling over at the border. "What's happening right now is we've got rhetoric that's driving the policy."

When it was pointed out after his speech that his talk of war might not be welcome at the border, Dewhurst quickly wrote it off as just a rhetorical strategy: “I use the word 'war' only in the sense to get people’s attention to understand that there’s a serious problem along our porous southern and northern border.”

Unfortunately, as Chief Rodriguez well understands, rhetoric drives policy. Dewhurst’s declaration of war on the border may be intended as nothing more than a metaphor, but it is likely to have real consequences for the residents of the Texas border.

In his own speech, Dewhurst called for more actual boots on the ground to deal with the war scenario that he later claimed was purely rhetorical. This same border war rhetoric is driving Governor Perry’s call for troops to patrol the border and military predator aircraft to fly up and down the Rio Grande. This month he stationed a specialized team of the Texas Rangers that will reportedly be patrolling the border region carrying automatic weapons, and wearing camouflage, helmets, and bullet-proof vests.

The governor’s action comes despite his own admission that crime along the border has been falling in recent years. And it has been deemed unnecessary by border law enforcement. Hidalgo County Sheriff Lupe Treviño said, “We don't need the Texas Rangers to come to the border to quell any imaginary disturbance.”

Although sending the Texas Rangers or the National Guard to fight an imaginary war at the border might make for good sound bites in the rest of the state, it sends a shiver down the spine of border residents. Community and business leaders fear that their efforts to develop the border region will be undermined by the false perception of a dangerous, militarized border. Residents know that staging a war in their communities, parks, and farmlands only puts them more at risk.

Border war rhetoric like Dewhurst’s drives policy on the national stage as well. Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina introduced an amendment to the 2010 DHS Appropriations Bill calling for more than 300 miles of new border wall. If the amendment passes, hundreds of those miles could be built in Texas. These walls are being proposed despite the fact that the hundreds of miles of border walls already built have not stopped people from crossing the border. Wayne Cornelius, Director Emeritus of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at the University of California at San Diego, say that despite the walls at the border, between 92% and 98% of all those attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border illegally eventually get through. This month, a report by the Government Accountability Office faulted the Department of Homeland Security for having no effective way to gauge the impacts that border walls are having on illegal entry.

But the myth of a border war trumps the reality that walls don’t work. In the press release about his amendment, DeMint says that more border walls are urgently needed because “our southern border has become a battleground.”

Too many walls already blight the Texas borderlands. Texas citizens have had their private property stripped away to make way for walls. Texas cities have seen their landscape forever marred by them. Texas natural areas, wildlife refuges and parks have been irreparably damaged by them. All of this destruction is rooted in the myth of the border war.

Dewhurst’s inflammatory war rhetoric may have been intended only to “get people’s attention,” but the consequences for his constituents along the border are very real. When our borderlands are decreed a war zone, politicians in Austin and Washington forget that it is a place that millions of people call home. They jump on the border war bandwagon, hoping to score political points and to burnish their law-and-order credentials. Like Lt. Gov. Dewhurst, they make the border a scapegoat for crime in the rest of the Texas and the United States. Like Gov. Perry and Sen. DeMint, they dream up absurd, and ultimately destructive, schemes to fight an imaginary war.

Border residents desperately need leaders who will reject the border war scenario, who will refuse to bear false witness against the borderlands and who will work tirelessly to represent the reality of border life at the state and national level. We need uncompromising leaders who will not be complicit in the border war myth, who will actively oppose the schemes based on this myth, and who will not sit silently by as the border region that they were elected to represent is mischaracterized, maligned and damaged.

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

The Border Wall vs. Property Rights: Texas’ Senators Support the Wrong Side

by Scott Nicol

To build the border wall the federal government has brought condemnation lawsuits against more than 300 Texas landowners. Homeowners, farmers, nature preserves, and municipalities all face the imminent loss of their property for a patchwork of walls that have “no discernible impact” on the overall numbers of immigrants or smugglers who cross the border, according to the Congressional Research Service. The wall is a rhetorical point used by politicians who do not represent border communities to claim that they are working to protect the homeland. For them, the real impact of the border wall is irrelevant; all that matters is the perception among voters who will never actually see it. Members of congress who do represent Texas border residents should be fighting to defend our lands and our homes, literally the homeland that the border wall is supposed to secure. Instead, Texas’ Senators have worked to fund and build the wall that today stands in Hidalgo County and is tearing through Brownsville.

Land nearest the Rio Grande has always been prized because of the rich soil and the year-round availability of water. Many families along its banks still hold title to lands that were granted to their forefathers by the King of Spain as early as the 1740’s, decades before the United States and Mexico became sovereign nations, and more than a century before the Rio Grande became their shared border. For these owners, the land is a priceless piece of their family’s history.

Eloisa Tamez’ property has been in her family since the King of Spain issued the San Pedro Carracitos Land Grant in 1763. In 2007 DHS demanded access to her property for border wall surveys, then initiated condemnation proceedings. Dr. Tamez enlisted the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law and initiated a class-action lawsuit alleging that DHS has refused to negotiate with landowners before condemning their property, as the law requires. She also demanded that DHS reveal its criteria for citing the border wall, which in places runs for miles through poor and/or minority communities, then ends abruptly at the property line of wealthy property owners and resort communities. David Pagan of Customs and Border Protection responded, "We do not plan to suspend work on the construction of fence in order to hold a series of additional consultation meetings." On April 15, 2009 the court ruled against Dr. Tamez’, allowing the federal government to seize her land. Within a week the border wall had been built across her property.

Last February Eva Lambert awoke to the sound of heavy equipment erecting the border wall’s steel posts on her land. In her case, either through disregard for the law or incompetence, DHS finished construction of the wall before anyone had contacted her to negotiate a price or condemn her property. Denied her day in court as well as her property, Ms. Lambert is still waiting to find out what compensation will be offered. As she told the Brownsville Herald, "In the end, the government does what it wants."

In the low-lying river delta of South Texas, the treaty that established the Rio Grande as the border prohibits construction between the levee and the river. This is because a structure immediately adjacent to the river could deflect floodwaters and shift the river’s course, resulting in a change in the international boundary. So, to comply with the treaty, the border wall is being built into, on, or behind the flood-control levee that parallels the river rather than immediately adjacent to it. This levee is located up to two miles north of the river, leaving thousands of acres of U.S. territory, much of it privately owned, behind the border wall.

The Department of Homeland Security has offered only to pay for the exact footprint of the border wall (typically, a 60-foot wide strip) as it passes through a parcel of land. In their simplistic calculations, the agency has completely issues such as the devaluation of contiguous property, problems accessing land and homes behind the wall, impacts on livelihood, and the importance of cultural heritage. Despite the range and complexity of these issues, DHS has steadfastly refused to enter into meaningful negotiations with property owners.

The Nature Conservancy’s Southmost Preserve maintains one of the last remaining Sabal Palm forests along the banks of the Rio Grande. The border wall will bisect the preserve, cutting off more than 700 acres along with an equipment barn, office, and caretaker’s residence. The property was purchased in 1999 for $2.6 million, but DHS has only offered to pay $114,000 for the wall’s footprint, a strip of land 60 feet wide and 6,000 feet long. DHS has refused to explain how they will access the property that will be behind the wall. They claim that gates will be built, but they won’t say who will get keys or under what circumstances Conservancy staff will be able to access the property. Like Dr. Tamez, the Nature Conservancy is attempting to use the courts to save their land.

Other homes, businesses, and properties that are behind the levees will be walled off entirely, trapped between the wall and the Rio Grande. DHS has refused to grant any compensation whatsoever for properties left on the “Mexican” side of the wall. Indeed, because DHS is focused solely on the wall’s exact footprint, they have failed to even make contact with some of the landowners with property behind the wall.

The Sabal Palm Audubon Center preserves another 557 acres of Sabal Palm forest, which will also be behind the border wall. Because the wall will be built a few feet to the north of their property line, DHS has not offered Audubon any compensation whatsoever. Both Audubon and the Nature Conservancy have said that restricted access for their employees may force them to cut their operations. There is also the concern that uncertain access for emergency personnel may make it impossible to purchase the insurance that allows busloads of local school children to visit the center. With construction of the border wall imminent, Audubon announced that on May 15, 2009 they will close to the public for at least the next 6 months.

The Department of Homeland Security has repeatedly claimed that they have consulted with landowners and local officials regarding border wall construction. But when the Texas Border Coalition repeatedly invited DHS and Customs and Border Protection officials to “walk the line” and see the impacts that the border wall will have on specific communities, they responded that they would only do so if the owners of the property that they would be crossing were kept away. Apparently, their preferred method of consultation is a condemnation proceeding.

In the face of these assaults on property rights by the federal government, one would expect Texas’ conservative Senators to stand up for their constituents. Private property and small government are central tenets of both of their stated philosophies. In July of 2007 Senator Cornyn told reporters, "I assure you there will be local consultation. There will not be ... unilateral actions on the part of the Department of Homeland Security without local input."

Senator Hutchison did add an amendment to the 2008 Omnibus Appropriations Bill that gave the Secretary of Homeland Security the flexibility to decide where walls should be built, as well as to spare places where walls do not make sense. The Homeland Security Secretary was also required to, “consult with the Secretary of Interior, the Secretary of Agriculture, States, local governments, Indian tribes, and property owners in the United States to minimize the impact on the environment, culture, commerce, and quality of life for the communities and residents located near the sites at which such fencing is to be constructed.”

Following howls of outrage from right wing pundits and politicians that she had “gutted” the Secure Fence Act, Hutchison backed away from her amendment. She has yet to confront DHS on its refusal to consult with property owners, as epitomized by its demand that landowners be kept away from any DHS employees who walk the line through their property. So long as she is afraid to fight on behalf of Texas landowners, the amendment that she authored is just more empty words.

Senator Cornyn’s statements assuring that there will be local consultation have also proved to be empty. Like Senator Hutchison, he has made no concrete effort to stand up for border residents. Instead, Cornyn sponsored the “Emergency Border Security Funding Act of 2007” which called for 700 linear miles of border wall and 300 miles of vehicle barriers along the US – Mexico border, and provided $3 billion dollars to build it. Cornyn’s bill went nowhere, but even without it DHS has received $3.1 billion to build the border wall.

On April 2, 2009, the one year anniversary of former Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff’s border-wide waiver that swept aside 36 federal laws, both of Texas’ Senators voted to add a motion to the Omnibus Appropriations bill that read, “To provide for a point of order against any appropriations bill that fails [to] fully fund the construction of the Southwest border fence.” The vote fell along party lines and failed, but in voting once again in favor of the border wall Hutchison and Cornyn chose party loyalty over the interests of their constituents.

This should not come as a surprise. When Cornyn looks back at the last election, he will look to the north Dallas suburbs as important to his win, not 540 miles south of Dallas to Brownsville. When Hutchison thinks about her upcoming bid to unseat Governor Perry, she will be counting on votes in Sugarland, not El Paso. Though they claim to represent the entire state, so long as they see border communities as politically irrelevant they will not work on our behalf.

The fact that their neglect is not surprising does not make it acceptable. Our Senators, as well as our U.S. Representatives and our President, were put in office to work for all of us. They can not be allowed to play favorites. When they do we need to speak up.

Some border representatives are working to defend border communities. Representative Grijalva of Arizona has authored HR 2076, The Border Security and Responsibility Act. It would require that the Department of Homeland Security work with border communities and landowners in developing security measures, rather than treat them as the enemy. DHS would also have to obey all of our nation’s laws, instead of sweeping away those which are seen as an inconvenience. Cosponsoring this bill in the House, or introducing a companion in the Senate, would be a concrete demonstration of support for border residents.

With this bill pending and walls under construction, it is critical that our members of Congress hear from their constituents right now. Urge them to support the Border Security and Responsibility Act. Demand that they work to stop further walls from tearing through the borderlands. Though only around 50 miles of border wall remain to be built it is not too late to stop it. If you lived in a home, or owned a farm, or worked at a wildlife refuge that is in the path of one of those miles, you would see every last mile as important.

So long as we sit quietly by and watch the border wall go up, we are irrelevant in the eyes of Congress. If we do not make our voices heard, and make our elected officials listen, mile upon mile of wall will be built. And while we can rail against the politicians who sacrifice our home for political gain, if we are silent we own a portion of the blame.

Chertoff Pays the Price of the Border Wall in Human Lives

By Scott Nicol

In 2007 a U.S. district court ordered a halt to construction of the border wall through the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff responded to the ruling, “I have to say to myself, ‘Yes, I don’t want to disturb the habitat of a lizard, but am I prepared to pay human lives to do that?’” He then waived 19 federal laws, using the unprecedented power granted him by the Real ID Act to override the judge’s order, and immediately resumed construction of the border wall through the last free-flowing river in southern Arizona. This past April he issued another Real Id Act waiver, which swept aside 36 federal laws to enable the construction of walls called for by the Secure Fence Act along the southern border.


Secretary Chertoff’s statement was intended to mislead the American people into believing that the environmental damage caused by border walls is the necessary cost of protecting U.S. citizens. When confronted with a “lizards vs. humans” choice, anyone with warm blood will defend the latter. Establishing this false dichotomy is therefore a great way to marshal support for the border wall by demonizing border wall opponents as wanting to sacrifice human safety and national security to protect animals. But it is a lie, and Chertoff knows it.

While the walls built along the U.S./Mexico border since the 1990s have done tremendous environmental damage, they have not saved any human lives. Chertoff cannot point to a single terrorist who has attempted to cross the U.S./Mexico border, much less one turned back by a section of border wall. It has not even reduced the number of undocumented immigrants who enter the country each year seeking work. Four months before Chertoff claimed that if we do not build walls we must be “prepared to pay human lives,” the Congressional Research Service issued a report which found that the border wall “did not have a discernible impact on the influx of unauthorized aliens coming across the border.”

The border wall has instead caused thousands of deaths. In 2006 the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) looked at the border wall’s human toll since the erection of the first California sections in the mid 1990s. They found that, though the number of border-crossing deaths had been declining in the 1980s and early 1990s,

“Since 1995, the number of border-crossing deaths increased and by 2005 had more than doubled. […] This increase in deaths occurred despite the fact that, according to published estimates, there was not a corresponding increase in the number of illegal entries. Further, GAO’s analysis also shows that more than three-fourths of the doubling in deaths along the southwest border since 1995 can be attributed to increases in deaths occurring in the Arizona desert.”


This increase in deaths occurred because the border walls did not stop people from entering the United States, they only rerouted them. Confronted with an 18 foot high wall near San Diego, desperate immigrants did not turn around and go home. They went around it. Rather than crossing in safer urban areas, thousands instead came in through the desert. As a result, more than 5,000 have died from dehydration and exposure, and it is estimated that thousands of bodies lie undiscovered.

The GAO report revealed that funneling immigrants into the desert was not accidental, but intentional. “The strategy assumed that as the urban areas were controlled, the migrant traffic would shift to more remote areas where the Border Patrol would be able to more easily detect and apprehend migrants entering illegally. The strategy also assumed that natural barriers including rivers, such as the Rio Grande in Texas, the mountains east of San Diego, and the desert in Arizona would act as deterrents to illegal entry.”

The GAO concluded, “The increase in deaths due to heat exposure over the last 15 years is consistent with our previous report that found evidence that migrant traffic shifted from urban areas like San Diego and El Paso into the desert following the implementation of the Southwest Border Strategy in 1994.”


These findings were presented to Secretary Chertoff long before he lied to the American people to justify his Real ID Act waiver. Fully aware that existing border walls have caused thousands of deaths, he has decided to erect more walls.

And the decision is entirely his to make. Last year’s supplemental appropriations bill contained a provision which gives Secretary Chertoff absolute discretion as to whether or not to build walls along the border. It changes the Secure Fence Act’s text 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.'' With ample evidence that the border wall is causing thousands of deaths without slowing the influx of undocumented immigrants or enhancing national security, it should be easy to make that determination.

The border wall does not present the United States with a choice of either saving the environment or saving human lives. The wall takes a terrible toll on both. The real choice is whether or not to build more walls, knowing that if more walls are constructed they will do irreparable environmental damage and cause thousands more to die.

Until Congress acts to amend or repeal the Secure Fence Act and the Real ID Act, only Secretary Chertoff has the power to make this decision. The language in the Omnibus bill gives Secretary Chertoff the power to decide whether or not more border walls are built. The Real ID Act gives him the power to suspend our nation’s laws to build walls that would otherwise be illegal. Numerous reports have spelled out how many people have died, and how many more are likely to die, as a direct result of the border wall. In the face of all of this, Secretary Chertoff continues to build walls. In legal terms, this is a premeditated act, because he knows what the result will be. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has decided that to build the border wall he is in fact “prepared to pay human lives.”

Texas Politicians Ignoring the Danger that the Border Wall Poses to South Texas' Levees

An Open Letter to Texas Politicians:

During the past year, many of us have submitted letters to our elected representatives expressing our concerns regarding the manner in which the Border Wall or Fence is being constructed in the Lower Rio Grande Valley (LRGV). Most of our letters of concern have gone unanswered although we have received a few vague responses which appear to be standard form letters which have little or no relevance to the concerns we expressed. This indicates to us that our letters are not getting past your staffers, so we are expressing these concerns again by way of this Open Letter to Texas Politicians, which includes all of our Senators and Representatives in the U. S. Congress, the Governor of Texas, and our local County officials involved in the Border Wall project.

One of the primary concerns expressed in our previous letters relates to the fact that construction of the Border Wall in Hidalgo County was originally scheduled to begin on 25 July 2008 – a date which lies in the middle of our annual hurricane season. Less than one week after letters requesting a congressional investigation or reevaluation of the Border Wall project in south Texas were sent to Mr. Richard Stana of the Government Accountability Office in Washington (with copies to both Texas Senators), the LRGV region was impacted by Hurricane Dolly, a category 2 storm which made landfall on 23 July and caused extensive flooding in most of Cameron County and within large areas of central Hidalgo County. Approximately two days after the landfall of Hurricane Dolly, and while Dolly’s floodwaters were still rising in most areas of the LRGV region, DHS contractors began excavating the flood-control levees at Granjeno for implantation of the concrete Border Wall. Since that time, additional large-scale construction projects have been initiated along levee systems located east of Santa Ana NWR near Alamo and south of Donna and Weslaco. It does not seem to have dawned on any of the decision-makers in the Border Wall project that we are still in the middle of our annual hurricane season, and they seem to be oblivious to the fact that NOAA has warned that 2008 will probably be an unusually active hurricane season.

To appreciate why we are so concerned about this situation, please note the images of the flood-control levees at Granjeno (located four miles south of Mission) which were acquired on 1 September 2008 – the same day that Hurricane Gustav made landfall on the Louisiana coast. The first two images were taken from the back yard of a local resident and show the north face of a levee under construction – notice how loose and friable the soil on this side of the levee appears to be, which suggests that it has been destabilized to a considerable extent as a result of construction activities.

North face of flood-control levee at Granjeno, Texas – 1 September 2008.

When this same section of the Granjeno levee system is viewed from the floodway located to the south, several disturbing observations are evident. First, the extent of Border Wall construction which has occurred in this area during the past six weeks – i.e., since 27 July - is substantial, although the concrete Border Wall itself appears to be far from complete (upper). More importantly, a huge gap exists between the concrete Border Wall and the south face of the original (now excavated) levee which shows the same evidence of destabilization (loose and friable texture) as the north side discussed previously (lower). After viewing these images, try to visualize how a “flood-control” levee in this destabilized condition might perform if we are impacted by another hurricane this year and areas such Granjeno are subjected to torrential rainfall and the floodway to the south becomes submerged in deep water exhibiting strong currents and eddies. By doing so, you will probably begin to understand why we are so concerned about this situation and why we are making so much noise about it.

South Side of the Granjeno levees – 1 September 2008.

In a meeting held in Edinburg during early-June of this year, our local Hidalgo County officials assured us that construction of the Border Wall will not destabilize our flood-control levees in any manner - they even stated that levees under construction would be checked and certified as being stable (at least 15 of our members were present at this meeting and can verify that these statements were made). Ladies and Gentlemen – Senators, Representatives, Governor, and Locals - it does not take a rocket scientist or a hydrologist or a civil engineer to figure out that the “flood-control” levees shown in the above images are in a highly destabilized condition as a result of Border Wall construction and will probably not hold up to runoff produced by a heavy afternoon thundershower, much less to floodwaters produced by a major tropical storm or hurricane. This is a very dangerous situation – we have already been impacted by one hurricane this season and recent NOAA satellite images of the Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico resemble an “assembly line” of tropical storms and hurricanes, any one of which could head our way. If this occurs, we will have a week at most to prepare for it, and we see no way that destabilized “Humpty-Dumpty” levees such as those that now occur at Granjeno and other areas can be “put back together again” in time to avert major flooding.

In all of our previous correspondence, we have simply asked that one or more of our elected public officials take the initiative to address this problem before a genuine disaster occurs here. The solution to this problem is simple – use your influence and power or introduce legislation to postpone any further construction of the Border Wall in the LRGV region until the 2008 hurricane season ends in November. If this is not done, we are facing the distinct possibility of having 30+ miles of our flood-control levees in Hidalgo County disrupted to the extent of those at Granjeno during the most dangerous time of the year (the hurricane season peaks during mid-September). And while you are at it, you might want to assess the ramifications of the recent decision by DHS officials to construct a traditional metal Border Fence (in lieu of a concrete Border Wall) in neighboring Cameron County in order to reduce costs. What everyone involved had better be aware of is that the metal Border Fence has caused at least three major floods this year in cities located in Arizona and/or adjacent areas of Mexico - e.g., the failure of runoff from a 2-inch rain to flow under the Border Fence in Nogales, Arizona resulted in floodwaters up to 8 feet deep in neighboring Nogales, Mexico during July, 2008. If DHS mandates the construction of the less-expensive fence in Cameron County, then it is essentially mandating the construction of a structure known to be dangerous through an entire Texas county without the approval of local citizens. If things go wrong, and a lot of property is damaged and/or lives are lost because of this structure, the U. S. government will face a public relations meltdown and the local officials and contractors who constructed the fence will very probably spend their retirement years in poverty and possibly in jail.

We support efforts to secure the international border with Mexico, but we also expect and demand that government programs in our area be conducted in a manner that does not place our homes and lives at undue risk.

Thank you.

K. Rod Summy, Ph.D.
Resident and Concerned Citizen
Weslaco, Texas

No Border Wall Endorses the People’s March to Stop the Wall

The No Border Wall Coalition strongly endorses the Border People’s March to Stop the Wall, currently underway on the Texas – Mexico border. Marchers will follow the route of the 57-mile segment of border wall that is being built from Ft. Hancock, Texas, to El Paso, Texas. Led by No Wall – Big Bend and the Border Ambassadors, they plan to highlight the tremendous human and environmental costs of the wall in west Texas and along the entire U.S. – Mexico border.

Marchers will set off from Fort Hancock today, and arrive in El Paso on Sunday, August 31. More information about the march and its route is available at the Border Ambassadors website - www.borderambassadors.com .

Of special concern along the marchers’ route is the impact of the border wall on Native American communities. Like the Tohono O’Odham farther west, the lands that the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo of the Tigua Nation calls home lie on both sides of what is now the international border. The Rio Grande is crucial not only for providing water in a harsh, dry environment, it is also integral to their religious practices. As the Rio Grande is walled off, the Tiguas have stated that they will be cut off from graves and sacred sites.

There are laws on the books, most notably the American Indian Religious Freedom Act and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, that should prevent this assault on the Tiguas religion and culture. But section 102 of the Real ID Act allows Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff to brush aside any law that might slow construction of the border wall. On April 1, 2008 he did just that, “waiving in their entirety” 36 federal laws including the American Indian Religious Freedom Act and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.

The Tiguas are party to a challenge to the constitutionality of the Real ID Act’s waiver provision, alleging that giving an unelected administration appointee the power to waive laws passed by Congress and signed by the President for the express purpose of subverting the judiciary is a violation of the separation of powers enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. They are joined by El Paso County, the El Paso County Water Improvement District No. 1, the Hudspeth County Conservation and Reclamation District No. 1, Galeria 409, The Frontera Audubon Society, the Friends of the Wildlife Corridor, and the Friends of Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge. The wide spectrum of plaintiffs challenging the Department of Homeland Security’s suspension of laws points to the broad range of negative impacts that the wall will have in Texas, as well as the rest of our nation’s borderlands.

The same river that provides a focal point for the Tiguas’ religious ceremonies is equally important for the survival of plant, animal, and human communities. The Rio Bosque Wetlands Park has also spoken out against the wall, stating that, “A fence would limit the ability of native terrestrial species to move between such areas and the floodway. It would limit genetic exchange and would fragment populations that are currently connected.” As habitat is fragmented and access to the river is denied, animals, particularly those that are listed as federally threatened or endangered, may not survive.

With border wall construction currently under way near El Paso and elsewhere, it is critically important that we remind members of Congress that the elections that they are currently obsessed with are just the entrance exam for their jobs. Elections are meant to bring in public servants, and it is their job to serve the best interests of the American people. Building walls that will cut off the Rio Grande, that will disrupt Native American religious practices and disturb graves, that will destroy natural areas such as the Rio Bosque Wetlands Park, and will cost U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars, is unconscionable. As our public servants once again come before the American people, asking for our votes, it is important that they know that we will hold them accountable for their actions.

Hurricanes and Border Walls Don’t Mix

The Texas Border Coalition, which describes itself as a collective voice of border mayors, county judges, and economic development commissions along Texas' border with Mexico, released the following statement regarding the border wall in South Texas:

EAGLE PASS, Texas – (July 25, 2008) – As South Texans continue to repair roofs, roads and lives damaged by Hurricane Dolly, the chairman of the Texas Border Coalition (TBC) repeated his protest today that hurricanes and the border wall don’t mix.

TBC Chairman and Eagle Pass Mayor Chad Foster objected to a new plan by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to build 14 miles of movable wall in the U.S.-Mexico border floodplain that would have to be torn down within 24 hours of the next hurricane or other flood event.

“Hurricane season is not over with the downgrading of Dolly,” Foster said. “Not only does DHS plan to continue its piecemeal approach to protecting the lives of South Texans, now they plan a total absurdity: a movable wall.”

“If a movable wall were in place today, over 1,000 workers would be needed to tear it down within 24 hours, load it on to hundreds of trucks to take it north,” said Foster. “They would be doing so instead of battening down their homes for the storm or evacuating their families from its wrath.”

According to the latest information available about the movable wall, it would be constructed of steel bollards 18 feet above ground, filled to the 10-foot level with concrete. By TBC’s back-of-the-envelope estimations, the 14-mile movable wall would be made of nearly 90,000 steel bollards, each weighing about 1,700 pounds.

To achieve its goal of removing the wall, the DHS would have to haul away 151 million pounds of unwieldy pipe filled with concrete. Who will move it and with what equipment is unclear.

“The people of the Rio Grande Valley, having just experienced the rapid emergency work necessary to protect the people in advance of a hurricane, know that DHS’ movable wall is simply ridiculous,” Foster said.

“It is an outrage that that DHS is so arrogant, out of control and headstrong to build a wall that even Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff admits won’t work – that illegal crossers will go around, over, through and under it,” Foster said. “In doing so, they are wasting $50 billion of the taxpayers’ money for a wall that everyone knows won’t work.”

Foster added, “This is the result of Secretary Chertoff’s waiver of 34 laws to build the wall. By repealing these laws, DHS has avoided scrutiny from the public and government agencies, essentially voiding our system of checks and balances. It would have made more sense, and saved taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, if DHS had simply consulted with border residents and border officials first. We certainly would not have suggested a 151-million-pound movable wall.”

The Texas wall is being built more than 1 mile from the border, trapping workers, families, farmers, ranchers, and retirees on the Mexican side. The wall will cede thousands of acres of U.S. land to Mexico and endanger the lives of people when they need assistance from emergency or law enforcement personnel who won’t be able to reach them.

“Illegal border crossing won’t be controlled until the U.S. has a well-run immigration system that expands avenues for legal workers and cracks down on illegal hiring,” Foster said.

When immigration is reformed, the U.S. won’t need a border wall, although the nation will continue to require beefed up Border Patrol and Customs forces to halt illegal drug smuggling. The border wall will be torn down, he added.

“We thank goodness that Hurricane Dolly jogged north of the Rio Grande river just before hitting Texas. As my friends and neighbors give thanks for being spared from what could have been the worst catastrophe of their lives, Congress and President Bush should stop the construction of an absurd movable border wall that they’ll have to tear down,” Foster said.

# # #

The Texas Border Coalition (TBC) is a collective voice of border mayors, county judges, economic development commissions focused on issues that affect more than 6 million people along the Texas-Mexico border region and economically disadvantaged counties from El Paso to Brownsville. TBC is working closely with the state and federal government to educate, advocate, and secure funding for transportation, immigration and ports of entry, workforce and education and health care. For more information, visit the coalition Web site at www.texasbordercoaltion.org.

WAIVED ON THE BORDER: THE ADMINISTRATIVE PROCEDURE ACT OF 1946

By Nat Stone

Wary of New Deal-era government expansion, and after costly brushes with fascism under Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, in 1946 Congress passed the Administrative Procedure Act to protect United States citizens from abuses by federal agencies.

As President Roosevelt had observed during the decade-long process of negotiating the APA, to entrust federal agencies with legislative, executive, and judicial powers was also to risk corrupting these powers, and "to develop a fourth branch of government for which there is no sanction in the Constitution."

The Administrative Procedure Act authorizes and standardizes the procedures of 55 federal agencies responsible for implementing and enforcing federal laws. A manual for governance, APA requires transparency in agency rulemaking, opportunity for citizen participation, and protection of individual privacy.

Further buttressing the foundation of American civil rights, these among many provisions of the Administrative Procedure Act require that:

Agencies shall "give interested persons an opportunity to participate in the rule making…"

Agencies shall "maintain no record describing how any individual exercises rights guaranteed by the First Amendment unless expressly authorized."

Agencies shall "establish appropriate administrative, technical, and physical safeguards to insure the security and confidentiality of records…"

Whenever any agency fails to comply…in such a way as to have an adverse effect on an individual, the individual may bring a civil action against the agency…"

A person compelled to appear in person before an agency or representative thereof is entitled to be accompanied, represented, and advised by counsel…"

Under authority of Section 102 of the 2005 REAL ID Act, The Administrative Procedure Act is one of 36 federal laws now waived, without explanation, by the Department of Homeland Security for border wall construction.

Left unchecked, the unprecedented vagueness of Section 102 waiver authority, and the unjustified muting of the Administrative Procedure Act, may be repeated for other federal projects elsewhere in the nation.

For true collaboration between DHS and local agencies for appropriate border management, and to check Section 102 waiver authority, please support HR 2593, The Borderlands Conservation and Security Act.

The full text of HR 2593 can be found here:
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h110-2593.

Here is the complete list of laws that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff waived using his Real ID Act authority on April 1, 2008:

National Environmental Policy Act
Endangered Species Act
Federal Water Pollution Control Act (commonly referred to as the Clean Water Act)
National Historic Preservation Act
Migratory Bird Treaty Act
Clean Air Act
Archeological Resources Protection Act
Safe Drinking Water Act
Noise Control Act
Solid Waste Disposal Act
Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act
Archaeological and Historic Preservation Act
Antiquities Act
Historic Sites, Buildings, and Antiquities Act
Wild and Scenic Rivers Act
Farmland Protection Policy Act
Coastal Zone Management Act
Wilderness Act
Federal Land Policy and Management Act
National Wildlife Refuge System Administration Act
Fish and Wildlife Act of 1956
Fish and Wildlife Coordination Act
Administrative Procedure Act
Otay Mountain Wilderness Act of 1999
Sections 102(29) and 103 of Title I of the California Desert Protection Act
National Park Service Organic Act
National Park Service General Authorities Act
Sections 401(7), 403, and 404 of the National Parks and Recreation Act of 1978
Sections 301(a)-(f) of the Arizona Desert Wilderness Act
Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899
Eagle Protection Act
Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act
American Indian Religious Freedom Act
Religious Freedom Restoration Act
National Forest Management Act of 1976
Multiple Use and Sustained Yield Act of 1960

Presidio does the right thing in joining the Texas Border Coalition border wall lawsuit

by Adrienne Evans

On Tuesday, May 20, after input from citizens and discussion among the mayor and council, the Presidio City Council voted to join the Texas Border Coalition (TBC), a coalition of Texas border cities, counties, chambers of commerce, and economic development corporations, representing over two million border residents from El Paso to Brownsville. Presidio is scheduled by DHS for levee-wall construction this year, along with Cameron and Hidalgo Counties.

On February 19, the Presidio City Council passed a resolution that stated that they opposed “the building of a wall along the Texas/Mexico border that extends over 135 miles of border,” as well as “a wall specifically in the Big Bend Area of Texas,” in that “the building of the border wall will impact our region, through trade, tourism, and unfriendly relations within border alliances”. The Presidio County Commissioners, the City of Marfa, the City of Alpine, and the City of El Paso passed similar resolutions.

At the Border Wall Conference in Alpine on May 17, U.S. Border Patrol Deputy Chief Carry Huffman stated in reference to a border wall in Presidio, “As I mentioned earlier, Presidio is not a place that is out of control. Apprehensions in Presidio are relatively low.” After delineating examples of the existing problems in the Marfa Sector, Huffman said, “We anticipate that traffic will be moving through the Ojinaga area,” as the rationale for the border wall.

During a presentation at the Tuesday City Council meeting, Redford resident and border activist April Cotte stated, “I have spoken with five landowners who are very against this, whose land will be affected.”

Mayor Lorenzo Hernandez said, “The thing that really bothers me is those big, old lines that we have to wait in [at the port of entry]. Two Sundays ago, people were complaining about waiting three hours to pass. So if this coalition could help us out that and help the businesses in Presidio, I don’t see why we shouldn’t join. … About the relationship between Presidio and Ojinaga … how is [the border wall] going to affect the relationship with those people? And they know they need Presidio just as much as we need them. And I don’t think this wall is going to help that relationship.”

Before the council voted to join the TBC, there was a discussion about alternatives to the border wall, such as restoring the Rio Grande to its historical levels. The vote was unanimous.
During the city council meeting, Presidio City Attorney Steve Spurgin indicated that he would be in contact with the attorneys involved regarding legal action.

The TBC has recently filed a class action lawsuit against the government asserting, among other issues, that there was a lack of consultation with property owners and border communities about the construction of a border wall. The lawsuit is being brought pro bono by a team that includes lead attorney Peter Schey of the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law in Los Angeles.

In the legal complaint filed on May 16, 2008, it states that Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff has "failed to comply with the consultation requirement of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2008 … which requires consultation with private property owners and cities and other stake-holders to minimize the impact on the environment, culture, commerce, and quality of life for the communities and residents located near the sites at which activities relating to border fencing may occur.”

The chair of the TBC is Chad Foster, the mayor of Eagle Pass. In the complaint filed last week, which names as the plaintiff, TBC, and as defendants, Secretary Chertoff as well as Robert F. Janson of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Mayor Foster is quoted about never receiving “any logical answers from defendants as to why certain areas in his city have been targeted for fencing over other areas: ‘I puzzled a while over why the fence would bypass the industrial park and go through the city park.’”

After the Presidio city council's vote, lifelong Redford resident Enrique Madrid, who attended the meeting with his wife Ruby, said, “Today, May 20, is the eleventh anniversary of the killing of Esequiel Hernandez Jr. Instead of a human form of militarization like the Marines killing Esequiel, this border wall is an engineering form of militarization, which is just as inhumane and brutal as deploying the Marines on U.S. soil in Redford was, eleven years ago."

On May 20, 1997, Esequiel Hernandez, Jr., an 18-year-old high school student, was killed by U.S. Marines near his home in Redford, Texas, which is 12 miles from Presidio. He was the first U.S. citizen to be killed by members of the U.S. Armed Forces since an incident where student demonstrators were massacred at Kent State University by members of the Ohio National Guard in 1970. The documentary, The Ballad of Esequiel Hernandez, will air on PBS on July 8. It is narrated by Tommy Lee Jones and directed by Kieran Fitzgerald.

Mr. Madrid went on to say that “it was appropriate that the City of Presidio, in its own way, commemorated the death of Esequiel Hernandez by rejecting this new manifestation of militarization on this day. It’s like there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, that there is hope, that justice will be permitted, finally. Justice is a natural right that should be freely flowing, and the City of Presidio is supporting that.”

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Adrienne Evans is a mother, health practitioner and community volunteer who lives in Terlingua, Texas. She is the co-founder of No Wall – Big Bend coalition. For more info, visit www.NoWallBigBend.blogspot.com.
This op-ed first appeared in the Big Bend Sentinel, the Presidio International, and the Rio Grande Guardian.