Environmentalists are claiming that completion of the Otay Mesa border fence, along the Tijuana border, could threaten endangered species such as the San Diego fairy shrimp, California gnatcatcher and the light-footed clapper rail. Environmentalists are up in arms over a new
proposed legislation by Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.) which would include completion of the Otay Mesa border fence.
Los Angeles Times
At some points, a worn-out border fence teeters atop cliffs. In at least one spot along the sloping side of a canyon, erosion has buried so much of the fence that migrants and other travelers can step over it. Near the wind-swept shoreline of Border Field State Park, the 10-foot-tall steel panels that make up the fence are pocked with holes.
The Bush administration proposes closing off this final 3.5-mile stretch of border between the United States and Mexico by moving massive amounts of dirt from nearby mesas into canyons to create a long earthen berm. On the berm, parallel to the existing border fence, a second fence and a patrol road would be constructed.
...
"There's a compelling security reason" to complete the fence project, said Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-El Cajon), who has championed the project for more than a decade.
Let me translate a bit of this. By travelers and migrants they mean
illegal aliens. Who else is going to be stepping from the Mexico into the US at a border crossing without a checkpoint? Included in the area is a place called
Smugglers Gulch.
There is no question that the stretch of border, which includes the canyon known as Smugglers Gulch, is porous. Agents recently captured five migrants who said they jumped the fence and hid in wetlands for about an hour before being pulled out of the muck.
"Imagine, with one fence we couldn't get across [the border], with two fences it would be much more difficult," said Juan Carlos Vega, one of the migrants, wearing muddy pants in the back of a Border Patrol vehicle.
About 140,000 illegal migrants were apprehended crossing the border in the San Diego sector during the last 12-month period for which figures are available. The sector stretches 66 miles inland from the coast; no figures were available on apprehensions for the 3.5 miles under dispute.
Here's another translation, it's
illegal aliens, not migrant. Sheesh, the LA Times didn't even try to use the ignorant sounding "undocumented immigrant" this time. They try to make it sound like it's a local US citizen just moving around. The 140,000 figure is just the ones they caught, they probably missed a good 1/2 a million. Somewhere in this protestation of the border fence is the hand of some open border proponents such as MALDEF, MECHa or La Raza, I can bet you that.
How honest are the environmentalists being with this protest anyway? Don't illegal aliens wearing trails through their precious wetlands and leaving behind enough trash to fill in the superdome damage the environment?
Steve McPartland, a Border Patrol spokesman who patrolled the area for six years, said extending the fence and adding a second barrier would free up agents to patrol elsewhere and prevent most illegal crossings along that stretch.
...
"A true environmentalist would want to close that gap," Hunter said. "The estuary gets pounded by the traffic of folks being smuggled into the United States. There have been hundreds of trails cut deep by the smugglers."
One of the most compelling reasons to complete the project, Hunter said, is the cluster of naval facilities just north of the border that could be alluring targets for enemies of the U.S.
Navy Secretary Gordon R. England, in a letter last year in support of the project, argued that "the porous nature of this border area poses an unnecessary security risk" to the military installations.
I'm hoping this gets built. Anyone who claims to want to protect an area would want to limit traffic as much as possible and erecting a double fence would do just that. Their argument is merely smoke and mirrors to aid illegals entry into this country.
