Redstate

Posted at 9:11pm on Apr. 3, 2008 Chertoff Won't Let Enviros Stop Border Fence

670 miles to be completed by end of year

By Bluey

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff is taking heat from liberals and winning praise from conservatives for standing up to environmentalists who want to halt construction of the fence along the U.S.-Mexico border.

In a wide-ranging interview a handful of bloggers yesterday, Chertoff said his department was on target to build the congressionally mandated 670 miles of fence by the end of the year -- 370 pedestrian and 300 vehicle. Doing so would ensure that the next administration won't be able to derail the plan.

This week Chertoff announced he would bypass the National Environmental Policy Act and 30 other laws that could have delayed construction. Environmentalists managed to bring construction to a crawl during a previous fence project -- it took 14 years to build 11 miles of fence near San Diego. "That's basically a mile a year," Chertoff said. "At that rate if we were going to cover what we need to cover at the border it would be seven centuries. We do not have that long to wait."

Chertoff's promise to complete the fence comes at a time when Congress is considering a new round of immigration legislation. Chertoff appeared unconvinced that anything substantive would pass this year, but he indicated the ball would be in Congress' court.

During yesterday's interview, Chertoff also spoke about implementing Real ID and dispelling myths about a national ID card. Earlier this week, Chertoff's department secured a promise from one final holdout, Maine, to enact tougher licensing requirements in exchange for a waiver on Real ID compliance.

Posted in Border Fence | Immigration | Immigration | Michael Chertoff | Real ID — Comments (17)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 9:26am on Jan. 31, 2008 Just Enforce Existing Laws

By haystack

We have ALL gotten bundled up in angry exchanges over the immigration reform debate. Some have articulated their cases poorly, others have used shrill and false accusations as a means of self-defense. But whatever lies ahead for our immigration problems and whether/how they'll be solved, no one can faithfully argue that laws currently on the books shouldn't be enforced while we wait for them to be changed...immigration law or any OTHER laws for that matter. So how is it that something like THIS can happen in this day and age?:

A U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agent was killed Saturday when he was struck by a car driven by a suspected narcotics smuggler, officials said.

Luis Aguilar, 32, who was assigned to the Yuma, Arizona, border patrol station, died Saturday, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol Commissioner W. Ralph Basham said in a statement.
[...]
Aguilar was trying to place spike strips in the path of two vehicles believed to have illegally entered the country from Mexico when one of the vehicles hit him, agent Michael Bernacke, a spokesman for the agency's Yuma sector, told The Associated Press.

Both vehicles drove back across the border into Mexico, the AP said.

The fatal incident occurred in the Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area near Andrade, California, Basham said. Andrade is just over the California state line from Arizona.

The area is popular with off-road vehicle enthusiasts but also is frequently used by smugglers carrying people or drugs, the AP said.

I just can't help wondering why our Political heroes don't see that a border fence they have already approved should have long ago been financed and built. These are simple matters...they don't require years of researching, hundreds of polls, and dozens of election cycles to figure out.

More below the fold...

Posted in Border Fence | Congress | Immigration | Immigration Reform — Comments (13)/ Email this page » / Read More »