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.

Sabal Palms Audubon Sanctuary Will Close to the Public Thanks in part to the Border Wall

The Audubon Society issued the following press release today, announcing that thanks in part to the impending construction of the border wall they will be forced to curtail public access to the Sabal Palms Audubon Sanctuary. The Sanctuary is just downriver from Brownsville, Texas. The entire refuge lies between the Rio Grande and the flood control levee. DHS' current plan is to construct the border wall on the levee, completely cutting off the refuge. Because the wall is in front of the refuge, but does not touch it, Audubon has not been offered any compensation.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Audubon Texas will reduce hours of operation at the Sabal Palm Audubon Center and Sanctuary effective May 15, 2009. Combined impacts of the declining economy and continued uncertainty over the proposed border fence are forcing Audubon to curtail public programs and access at the center outside Brownsville, Texas, in order to continue its primary conservation mission there.

The sanctuary's original mission of preserving one of the nation's last oases of healthy sabal palm habitat had been augmented in recent years by nature education efforts that expanded its role to that of a community nature center. Regrettably, donors buffeted by the recession have significantly cut back support and there is uncertainty about the Homeland Security border fence that threatens to cut off the facility from the community, effectively decimating the sanctuary's operating budget.

"Funding must go first and foremost to maintaining the sanctuary and protecting the habitat, "said Audubon Texas Executive Director, Bob Benson. "Our first priority is to keep the habitat healthy for native wildlife and to ensure that its natural wonders remain intact for the inspiration, sustenance and education of future human generations.

"

The 557-acre property, owned by The National Audubon Society, is home to the last remaining largest stand of native sabal palms in the nation; and is among the most biologically diverse regions in the Lone Star state. Aside from being a birder's paradise, rare plants and animals are seen here in this unique sub-tropical habitat.

Audubon will focus its resources on protecting and managing the sanctuary through a new schedule that includes months with limited access to the public. The following schedule will be in effect until further notice:

May 15 – Oct. 15 CLOSED TO THE PUBLIC

Oct. 15 – Dec. 15 OPEN WEEKENDS ONLY (Saturday & Sunday)

Dec. 15 – May 15 OPEN Tues – Sunday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The sanctuary will still offer scheduled group tours for $10/person during the closed season; they can be arranged through the sanctuary manager. Individual admission during the open season will be $6.00 per person.

"It's unfortunate that we won't be able to maintain the current operation schedule," added Benson, "but Audubon will continue its vital work with the conservation community to protect the last vestiges of the sabal palm forest for future generations to enjoy. That's the mission that brought Audubon to the area, and it's a mission we will accomplish."

427 Sterzing Street #105-B w Austin, Texas 78704-1026
Contact: Bob Benson, Executive Director, 512-469-7891 or bbenson@audubon.org

Hidalgo County's Border Wall is Nothing to Brag About

By Scott Nicol

Last March, Hidalgo County Judge JD Salinas cut a deal with Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to build part of the border wall. Rather than build the wall to the north of the levee, DHS would insert it into the levees in Hidalgo County. It was estimated that this would raise the per-mile cost from $3 million to $5 million, so the county agreed to pay $44 million. When the bids came in, the low bids were $12 million per mile. As a result of Judge Salinas' capitulation Hidalgo County's border walls are nearly finished, while neighboring Starr County's wall construction has not begun, and Cameron County's is just beginning. They still have the chance to fight to halt construction, while for Hidalgo County the fight moves from stopping the wall entirely to preventing pro-wall zealots from filling in the spaces between levee-walls.

In his recent State of the County address, Judge JD Salinas made statements regarding the levee-border wall that were, to put it charitably, less than honest.

Judge Salinas said,

"The levee-barrier, which was the alternative reached by the Hidalgo County Drainage District and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, is now 95 percent complete. This solution has saved residents and businesses from purchasing $150 million per year in mandatory flood insurance. It has prevented private land from being taken by the federal government, and the flood control structure is more environmentally-sensitive than the proposed border fence."

As to his first point regarding the money saved by residents who will not need to purchase flood insurance, the levee-border wall did not replace all of the levee sections in Hidalgo County that were deemed inadequate. In a number of instances, portions of our levees that were not in need of repair were ripped apart to insert border walls. Other sections that are still in bad shape were not touched by the levee-border wall scheme. This is because the locations of levee-border walls had nothing to do with Hidalgo County’s flood control needs. They were decided upon by the Department of Homeland Security, without consulting locals, and without regard to the condition of the flood-control levees in any given area.

Luckily for Hidalgo County property owners, the economic stimulus package contains funds to rebuild our remaining decrepit levees. It is these repairs that will keep us from having to purchase flood insurance, not the border wall. If Judge Salinas had not capitulated to the demands of the Department of Homeland Security, those funds would also have been available to repair the levees in the places that are now border walls. Unfortunately for Hidalgo County residents, there is no money in the stimulus package to reimburse us for the $44 million that Judge Salinas spent to build the levee-border wall. Congress almost never appropriates money for projects that are already finished, so it is highly unlikely that Hidalgo County taxpayers will ever be reimbursed for the levee-border wall. Rather than save us millions, as he claims, the border walls that Salinas built have cost us millions of dollars.

As for the idea that the levee-border wall is better for the environment than Homeland Security’s original border wall designs, Judge Salinas knows full well that the opposite is true. Last March the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFW) wrote a letter to the Department of Homeland Security in response to the plan to build levee-border walls in Hidalgo County. It said,

“This combined project would eliminate wildlife passage by replacing CBP’s original “wildlife friendly” fence design with an impermeable 16 to 18 foot high wall built into a flood control levee. This new project design would effectively eliminate the wildlife passage component of the earlier design and would impair the ability of the wildlife corridor to fulfill its function. […] We would like to document that any proposed fence and/or levee segment that bisects lands within the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge cannot be found compatible with the purposes for which the Refuge was established.”

Today the levee-border walls in Hidalgo County hit 12 tracts of the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge, along with 3 tracts managed by Texas Parks and Wildlife, a World Birding Center, and property owned by the Nature Conservancy.

In contrast to Judge Salinas’ claims of environmental benefit, former Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff knew that the levee-border wall would violate numerous environmental laws. Last April he used the Real ID Act to issue 2 waivers of federal laws, one of which was specifically for the Hidalgo County levee-border wall. It brushed aside 27 laws, including the Endangered Species Act, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act. If the wall was in any way “environmentally-sensitive”, as Judge Salinas says, Chertoff could have left these laws in effect.

A visit to the Old Hidalgo Pumphouse World Birding Center makes the negative environmental impact of the levee-border wall painfully clear. The path that once led from the birding center into the adjacent USFW refuge tract is blocked by a concrete wall topped with rusting steel pickets. Not only are wildlife such as bobcats, or even endangered ocelots, stopped from moving freely, but birders and eco-tourists are also unable to access the 600 acre wildlife refuge tract that contains the birds and wildlife that they come to see.

The Old Hidalgo Pumphouse World Birding Center opened in April of 2007, and was the result of a joint effort of the city of Hidalgo, Hidalgo County, Texas Parks and Wildlife, and US Fish and Wildlife. Like other World Birding Centers in the Rio Grande Valley, it is meant to both preserve natural habitat and bring eco-tourists. Eco-tourism brings $125 million per year to the area, and Hidalgo hoped to attract some of those dollars. But eco-tourists come to see nature, not towering concrete and rusting steel, so the millions that have been invested to develop the birding center have been lost.

Tourists are also unlikely to visit a place that they think is a war zone. In the past few weeks the national press has been filled with sensationalistic headlines about the possibility that Mexico will become a “failed state”, and that violent “spillover” will sweep through border communities. Such stories generally fail to mention that while Juarez is being racked by violence, FBI statistics show that El Paso, just across the Rio Grande, is the third safest large city in the United States. San Diego and Brownsville are likewise far safer than the nation’s capitol, Washington, DC. Instead of refuting this misperception, Governor Perry and Senator Cornyn have reinforced it with calls for the mobilization of troops on the border. When people in Middle America hear this, and see that Hidalgo County’s Judge collaborated with the Department of Homeland Security to build the border wall, it looks like further evidence that Mexico poses a military threat to South Texas. Who in their right mind would come here on vacation?

The headlines screaming about “spillover” violence are already being used to call for a further militarization of the border. When the first walls built in California failed to slow the influx of immigrants, the response from Congress was not to try something else. Instead, two weeks ahead of the 2006 midterm election, they passed the Secure Fence Act, which called for more walls. With members of Congress trying to look hawkish on Homeland Security, there are guaranteed to be calls to build even more border walls. In the Rio Grande Valley the border wall is in 21 separate sections, ranging from nine-tenths of a mile to 6 miles long. It will be much harder to fight off calls to fill in the gaps in South Texas’ border wall with Judge Salinas’ repeatedly praising the levee-border wall. If the walls that he has already helped to build are such a blessing, why would he oppose the erection of more walls?

While on the surface his State of the County address is the run-of-the-mill self-congratulation that we expect from a politician, in fact his words have real consequences. Following his capitulation to former Secretary Chertoff, Judge Salinas went from being an opponent of the wall to the Department of Homeland Security’s poster boy. In press releases and Congressional testimony they use him to show that they are working with local stakeholders, rather than ignoring local concerns, condemning private and municipal property, and irreparably damaging border communities, economies, and ecosystems. Judge Salinas’ words provide DHS with cover as they continue to strong arm our next-door neighbors in Cameron County, as well as our friends in California.

Of course it is naïve to expect a politician to own up to his mistakes, to admit to being suckered into a bad deal that has cost his constituents millions of dollars. It is unrealistic to expect a mea culpa from Judge Salinas. But if he truly cares about the residents of Hidalgo County, the people who elected him and who he claims to serve, JD Salinas needs to stop trying to rebrand his greatest failure as a shining success. The wall is not a “solution” for any of the problems that we face. The border wall is a symbol of hatred, a blight on our communities, and a scar upon the landscape.

The Border Patrol Halts Communion at Friendship Park as Border Wall Construction Looms

By John Fanestil

On Saturday I was almost arrested for committing assault with a tortilla. Or was it my communion cup that Customs and Border Protection agents perceived to be a threat?

The setting was Friendship Park, a historic venue on the U.S.-Mexico border, overlooking the Pacific Ocean. For generations people from the two nations have met at this location to visit with friends and family through the border fence.

As part of its commitment to build 670 miles of double and triple barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border, the Department of Homeland Security is building a second wall across Friendship Park. On December 23, 2008, Customs and Border Protection declared the site a construction zone. On January 6, 2009 CBP released final design plans for the park and announced that these plans would eliminate permanently all public access to this unique site.

We, who are aficionados of the park, were stunned by the announcement. We knew DHS had decided to build a wall across the park, and we knew Customs and Border Protection agents had concerns about drug-smuggling and illegal border-crossings at the location. Still, we had assumed that the totality of law enforcement strategy for Friendship Park would not be predicated on the illegal conduct of a few. After all, drugs and criminal activity are problems in thousands of parks across the United States, and law enforcement agencies don’t respond by simply shutting them down.

We had assumed that some accommodation would be made for the vast majority of visitors to the park, who respect and honor the park’s intended purpose. Locals don’t call it “Friendship Park” for nothing, after all. Surely, we thought, there must be some room for friendship in the complex formula of U.S. border policy.

As the news of our government’s plans to close the park sunk in, we began to wonder when CBP would begin to enforce the ban on public access. The answer, it turns out, was this past Saturday, February 21. And I guess I have the ignominious distinction of being the first U.S. citizen to be forcibly prevented from approaching the border fence at Friendship Park.

For the past eight months I have gone to Friendship Park each Sunday afternoon and served communion to people on both sides of the border fence. I have done so out of solidarity with the many people who meet their loved ones there – and as a protest against DHS plans to decimate the park. People have been breaking bread at this location for a long, long time. It seemed to me only fitting that Friendship Park should host the sacrament of communion, too.

This past week, we moved our communion celebration to Saturday. The reason for this was something that any pastor can understand: we wanted to make the choir happy. A fabulous choir, composed of singers from both countries, wanted to perform at Friendship Park. Most of the singers have standing obligations on Sunday, so they asked for the event to be held on Saturday. We were quick to oblige.

As we approached the border on Saturday, we were met by a wall of CBP officers, who told us we could go no further than about 45 feet from the border fence. The choir set up shop and sang the Faure Requiem, the music blasting from a sound system set up by our friends in Tijuana. The choir performed admirably, despite having to compete with whistles, shouts and bullhorn blasts from a small group of anti-immigrant protestors who tried to hi-jack the gathering. Their inimitable combination of ignorance, hatred and incivility was no match for the choir, which included a stunning soprano solo – the Pie Jesu, “at the feet of Jesus” – sung from a distance in Tijuana.

After the requiem and a few prayers, I shared a brief message with the congregation. I recalled the gospel story in which Jesus goes to a mountaintop with his closest disciples. After Jesus is transfigured in dazzling light, Peter proposes that they erect tents atop the mountain and simply stay put. I drew the analogy to the love that so many of us feel for the United States, the land our forebears called “a shining city on a hill.” But can a city on a hill still truly shine if it has walls built around it? This is the great temptation of patriotism – the love of country is so quickly turned into hostility toward “the other.” The desire to protect our own wealth and privilege from the intrusion of foreigners is akin to Peter’s desire to stay up on the mountaintop with Jesus. As the Bible story makes clear, God has other things in mind for Jesus and those who find in him a kindred spirit. Jesus came down off the mountaintop and set out on his journey to Jerusalem, resisting at every step along the way all human efforts to build walls between God and God’s people.

Having concluded my brief sermon, I then offered communion to the 150 or so who had gathered in the United States. I then turned to the south, intending to serve the many people who were assembled in Tijuana for this same purpose.

My way was blocked by a Border Patrol agent, who was determined to make an impression. “You don’t want to do this,” he shouted at me, unsnapping several compartments on his uniform – to handcuffs, I presume, or perhaps mace.

I told him that all I wanted to do was serve communion, and another agent nearby shouted, “Go to Tijuana if you want to serve communion. You’re supposed to be a man of God. Then obey the law!”

I decided that this was not the time to conduct a teach-in on the historic Christian practice of civil disobedience, and instead tried to step forward. “I just want to serve communion,” I said.

The lead agent stepped in front of me, holding out his hand. “If you bump into me,” he shouted, “you’ll be charged with assaulting an officer.”

I’ve since learned from a lawyer that my actions did not come anywhere near the threshold for constituting assault, but in the moment I didn’t know that this was the case.

“So if I try to walk past you, and I bump into you, I’ll be charged with assault?” I asked.

“That’s right,” he said.

“OK,” I replied, “then I guess you’ll have to arrest me, because I’m going to serve communion.”

“OK, I will,” he said. “Turn around and put your hands behind your back.”

I did as I was told – this may have been a tactical mistake on my part – and the lead agent then instructed a colleague to remove me from the premises. “Take him out of the park,” he said, “but don’t arrest him.”

In retrospect I should have asked if I was being detained, but it seemed an almost silly question. After all I was being dragged away by a man in uniform, wearing a gun.

As we climbed the hillside that overlooks the beach at Friendship Park, the agent and I began to exchange pleasantries. “If it weren’t for all this mess, it really would be a beautiful day, wouldn’t it?” I said.

“Yeah,” he replied. “What did you have to go and do all that for?”

“I didn’t mean any disrespect to you or your colleagues,” I explained. “Our problem isn’t with you guys, we know you are just following orders. Our problem is with the policy, with the decision by your higher-ups to shut down the park.”

“The ones who ruin it,” the agent replied, “are the bad guys who pass all kinds of crap through the fence.”

“I understand that,” I said, “but this is exactly the problem with all our border policies. We’ve got to figure out a better way to distinguish between the bad guys and the good guys.”

The agent shrugged.

We sat atop the mesa, the agent and I, looking down on the beach. Later I learned that another of my friends, Dan Watman, was also removed from the beach by Border Patrol. After that the CBP agents put up a solid wall in front of our group and threatened them with assault charges if they stepped forward. The leaders of our group decided to stand down.

I am pleased with the way we all held up under such difficult circumstances on Saturday – but two days later I am left with a bad taste in my mouth. I find it unpalatable that I was not permitted to serve communion. There is a young homeless man, Adrian, who lives on the beach right there in Tijuana. He is there every Sunday and I saw him this last Saturday, too. Was he less worthy of communion that day than I was? What about Oscar, who was deported eight months ago and is separated from his wife and children, still living in the United States? He was there, too, just looking for a little human contact. Had I been allowed to offer him a piece of tortilla and a swig of juice, would that have compromised our national security, or our nation’s nobler principles?

Questions like these point to a larger one: What is to become of our nation’s southern border? Is this strip of land – over 1,850 miles long – to be turned over to the Department of Homeland Security and converted into nothing more than a “zone of enforcement,” straddled by walls?

I cannot abide it. I cannot abide it because I know the border can be an altogether different place than this. Like millions of others whose lives and relationships straddle the international boundary, I know the border can be a place where human beings meet, a place of friendship, a place of communion.

And that’s why I’ll be going back to Friendship Park next Sunday afternoon, to try once more to serve communion.

You are welcome to join me. The particulars are below my signature.

Adelante.

John Fanestil

DATE: Sunday, March 1, 2009

TIME: 2:30 meetup at entrance to Border Field State Park

PROGRAM: 30 minute hike to Friendship Park, communion

DIRECTIONS: Take Hwy 5 South, exit Dairy Mart Road, turn right (west) and follow the winding road to the entrance to the park.

INSTRUCTIONS: Bring documents verifying U.S. residence. Wear hiking boots.

In case you missed it, you can see the coverage in the Union-Tribune at this link. You can also keep up to date by joining the Friends of Friendship Park on Facebook. For Scott Bennett’s photos from the San Diego side, click here. For Alondra Almendra’s photos taken in Tijuana, click here.

MINISTER DETAINED WHILE ATTEMPTING TO SERVE COMMUNION AT U.S.-MEXICO BORDER WALL

The following release was issued by the San Diego-based Foundation for Change. Every Sunday since last summer, John Fanestil, the Foundation's Executive Director, has been offering communion to people on both sides of the wall at Friendship Park. To learn more about the Foundation for Change, visit their website here.

SAN DIEGO, CA – On Saturday, February 21, United States Border Patrol (USBP) agents forcibly denied U.S. citizens access to Friendship Park, an historic plaza overlooking the Pacific Ocean on the U.S.-Mexico border. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has announced their intent to impose a permanent ban on all public access to the historic location.

At noon on Saturday a group of 150 park patrons – local church choir members, university students, human rights advocates and environmentalists – gathered at Friendship Park to hold a peaceful, ecumenical service and concert. They were joined by friends from Tijuana, including members of the Tijuana Opera, who were waiting to participate on the other side of the fence. Upon their arrival, Border Patrol agents with rubber-bullet guns and tear-gas canisters at the ready forcibly pushed the group back and threatened to arrest any who would approach the fence.

The group then performed the Faure Requiem Mass in harmony with the Mexican singers and musicians. Rev. John Fanestil – a United Methodist Pastor and Executive Director of the San Diego-based Foundation for Change – then celebrated communion with a crowd of over 150 on the U.S. side of the border. When he attempted to distribute the communion elements to the crowd in Tijuana, Fanestil’s movements were blocked by a Border Patrol agent and he was told that one more step forward would result in his being charged with assault. Fanestil, communion elements in hand, was then told to turn around and place his hands behind his back. He was then forcibly removed from the area and later released without charge.

Also detained at Saturday’s event was Daniel Watman, organizer of the community-based organization Border Meetup. For years Watman’s group has hosted social events at Friendship Park, ranging from yoga classes and salsa dancing lessons to beach clean-ups in coalition with environmental organizations from San Diego and Tijuana like San Diego Coastkeeper and Proyecto Fronterizo de Educación del Medio Ambiente. As part of Saturday’s program, Watman and other participants had intended to join with counterparts from Grupo Ecologista de Tijuana in restoring Friendship Park’s bi-national garden, which has been uprooted on the U.S.
side by Border Patrol.

"Saturday, we followed in the footsteps of thousands over the decades who have visited Friendship Park for its intended purpose, international friendship," said the Rev. Fanestil. "Now, U.S. citizens are being walled off from a part of their own country and the building of friendships with our Mexican neighbors is being criminalized."

Dedicated on August 18, 1971, by First Lady Pat Nixon, Friendship Park is an historic, binational plaza that encircles a marble monument marking the initial boundary point separating the U.S. and Mexico since 1848. The plaza is within California’s Border Field State Park and a part of a larger ecological habitat, the Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve. After planting a tree to inaugurate the plaza in 1971, Mrs. Nixon ordered her security guards to cut the barbed wire separating her from a cheering crowd in Mexico and stated, "I hate to see a fence anywhere."

On December 23, 2008, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) declared Friendship Park a construction zone and announced a ban on all public access. On January 6, 2009 CBP released final design plans for the park and revealed their plans to prohibit permanently all public access to this unique site.

DHS plans for Friendship Park are part of a larger project which saw the Bush Administration waive dozens of environmental laws and regulations in order to facilitate the accelerated construction of double and triple barriers along the length of the 1850-mile U.S.-Mexico border. To date, over 600 miles of supplemental border wall have been completed, in some locations as far as two miles north of the first fence marking the international boundary. DHS officials have made known their desire to claim the lands along the border as a “zone of enforcement,” in effect creating a “no man’s land” that cuts across private property, public lands, national parks, sensitive wildlife refuges, sacred lands and historic cultural sites.

The San Diego-based coalition, “Friends of Friendship Park, includes over 30 community organizations dedicated to preserving the park. Local efforts have been supported by legislators ranging from Lieutenant Governor John Garamendi to San Diego City Council members. On February 4, members of Congress Susan Davis and Bob Filner, along with State Senators Christine Kehoe and Denise Ducheny, and State Assemblymembers Mary Salas and Lori Saldaña, sent a joint letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano asking her to halt to construction at the site pending further review.

The effort to save Friendship Park is a part of a larger movement being led by citizens and legislators from Brownsville, Texas, through New Mexico and Arizona to San Diego, California advocating a moratorium on border wall construction, pending further review. On February 10, eight members of Congress from border districts sent a letter to President Obama requesting a halt to construction on the border.

"In an era of advanced technologies, the border fence is an antiquated structure that has torn our communities apart and damaged our cross-border relationships,” the legislators wrote.

Border Wall Threatens Endangered Ocelot Kitten in South Texas: Future Uncertain as Construction Nears Fragile Habitat

Three of the nation's most respected environmental organizations - the Sierra Club, Defenders of Wildlife, and the Environmental Defense Fund - have issued the following press release condemning the tremendous environmental damage that the border wall will have on the endangered ocelot:

BROWNSVILLE , TEXAS —The first ocelot kitten seen in Texas in more than ten years has been photographed at Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge in Cameron County, Texas. Ocelots were listed under the Endangered Species Act in 1972, and there are believed to be less than 100 left in the United States .

The birth of an ocelot should be a hopeful sign of recovery, but it is marred by the looming onset of border wall construction along the U.S.-Mexico border in Cameron County , which puts this kitten’s future – and the future of the entire Texas ocelot population – in grave jeopardy.

“As we’ve seen with the border walls in California and Arizona , human beings can easily climb over walls with ladders or tunnel under them with a shovel,” said Jim Chapman, chair of the Lower Rio Grande Valley Sierra Club Group. “Ocelots and other wildlife are stopped dead in their tracks.”

Ocelots once lived in dense brush habitat throughout Mexico and the southern U.S., but farms, roads, fences, and housing developments have destroyed and fragmented their habitat along the Rio Grande, pushing populations in the two nations farther apart, and further isolating the Texas cats. Isolation weakens the gene pool and makes the population susceptible to catastrophic declines due to inbreeding or disease.

In 1979 a collaborative effort to bolster the ocelot population of South Texas began by piecing together and rehabilitating tracts of former farmland to create the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge. The ribbon of habitat that lines the Rio Grande acts as a wildlife corridor, connecting these refuge tracts to state lands and privately owned parks like Sabal Palm Audubon Sanctuary and The Nature Conservancy’s Lennox Foundation Southmost Preserve. Individually, none of these tracts would be large enough to support a healthy ocelot population, but with the Rio Grande corridor allowing for movement between tracts, and encouraging cross-border movements, it was hoped that their extirpation in the U.S. could be avoided.

The U.S.-Mexico border wall currently under construction will slice through the wildlife corridor, utterly undermining its purpose and decades of hard work and financial investment. The path of the wall follows the Rio Grande through prime riparian habitat, cutting some refuge tracts in two and severing others from the river, which in many places is the only source of fresh water.

Karen Chapman of the Environmental Defense Fund notes that, although the continued urban development of South Texas poses threats to the ocelot, “no other project so completely isolates habitat patches north and south, so completely renders riparian habitat inaccessible or so thoroughly eliminates the potential for future north-south habitat corridors.”

Concrete border walls topped with metal bars are already tearing through the wildlife corridor in neighboring Hidalgo County , upriver from Cameron County ’s refuge tracts. When the combination levee/border wall was proposed for Hidalgo County last year, Deputy Director Kenneth Stansell of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wrote to the Customs and Border Protection agency that “any proposed fence and/or levee segment that bisects lands within the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge cannot be found compatible with the purposed for which the Refuge was established.”

With the levee/border walls nearing completion in Hidalgo County ’s refuge tracts, the preservation of the wildlife corridor that remains in Cameron County is even more critical to the ocelots’ survival.

“The last administration swept away dozens of environmental laws to fast-track the construction of an enormously expensive, ineffective border wall,” said Noah Kahn, wildlife refuge program manager for Defenders of Wildlife. “President Obama has made it very clear that he intends to restore scientific integrity to federal actions. We hope that will include steps to reverse or mitigate the damage that the border wall is inflicting on wildlife, habitat and people along our southern border.”

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The trip camera photo of the ocelot kitten and mother is public domain and is available at http://www.friendso fsouthtexasrefug es.org/?id= 253 or by email at Nancy_Brown@ fws.gov

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.