Fence supporters

[Rigs11]

Update on what is going on with the border fence.Hilarious!

Holes in the Wall
Homeland Security won’t say why the border wall is bypassing the wealthy and politically connected.
Melissa del Bosque | February 18, 2008 | Web Exclusive


As the U.S. Department of Homeland Security marches down the Texas border serving condemnation lawsuits to frightened landowners, Brownsville resident Eloisa Tamez, 72, has one simple question. She would like to know why her land is being targeted for destruction by a border wall, while a nearby golf course and resort remain untouched.

Tamez, a nursing director at the University of Texas at Brownsville, is one of the last of the Spanish land grant heirs in Cameron County. Her ancestors once owned 12,000 acres. In the 1930s, the federal government took more than half of her inherited land, without paying a cent, to build flood levees.

Now Homeland Security wants to put an 18-foot steel and concrete wall through what remains.

While the border wall will go through her backyard and effectively destroy her home, it will stop at the edge of the River Bend Resort and golf course, a popular Winter Texan retreat two miles down the road. The wall starts up again on the other side of the resort.

“It has a golf course and all of the amenities,” Tamez says. “There are no plans to build a wall there. If the wall is so important for security, then why are we skipping parts?”

Along the border, preliminary plans for fencing seem to target landowners of modest means and cities and public institutions such as the University of Texas at Brownsville, which rely on the federal government to pay their bills.

A visit to the River Bend Resort in late January reveals row after row of RVs and trailers with license plates from chilly northern U.S. states and Canadian provinces. At the edge of a lush, green golf course, a Winter Texan from Canada enjoys the mild, South Texas winter and the landscaped ponds, where white egrets pause to contemplate golf carts whizzing past. The woman, who declines to give her name, recounts that illegal immigrants had crossed the golf course once while she was teeing off. They were promptly detained by Border Patrol agents, she says, adding that agents often park their SUVs at the edge of the golf course.

River Bend Resort is owned by John Allburg, who incorporated the business in 1983 as River Bend Resort, Inc. Allburg refused to comment for this article. A scan of the Federal Election Commission and Texas Ethics Commission databases did not find any political contributions linked to Allburg.

continued....

[Rigs11]

Just 69 miles north, Daniel Garza, 76, faces a similar situation with a neighbor who has political connections that reach the White House. In the small town of Granjeno, population 313, Garza points to a field across the street where a segment of the proposed 18-foot high border wall would abruptly end after passing through his brick home and a small, yellow house he gave his son. “All that land over there is owned by the Hunts,” he says, waving a hand toward the horizon. “The wall doesn’t go there.”

In this area everyone knows the Hunts. Dallas billionaire Ray L. Hunt and his relatives are one of the wealthiest oil and gas dynasties in the world. Hunt, a close friend of President George W. Bush, recently donated $35 million to Southern Methodist University to help build Bush’s presidential library. In 2001, Bush made him a member of the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, where Hunt received a security clearance and access to classified intelligence.

Over the years, Hunt has transformed his 6,000-acre property, called the Sharyland Plantation, from acres of onions and vegetables into swathes of exclusive, gated communities where houses sell from $650,000 to $1 million and residents enjoy golf courses, elementary schools, and a sports park. The plantation contains an 1,800-acre business park and Sharyland Utilities, run by Hunt’s son Hunter, which delivers electricity to plantation residents and Mexican factories.

The development’s Web site touts its proximity to the international border and the new Anzalduas International Bridge now under construction, built on land Hunt donated. Hunt has also formed Hunt Mexico with a wealthy Mexican business partner to develop both sides of the border into a lucrative trade corridor the size of Manhattan.

Jeanne Phillips, a spokesperson for Hunt Consolidated Inc., says that since the company is private, it doesn’t have to identify the Mexican partner. Phillips says, however, that no one from the company has been directly involved in siting the fence. “We, like other citizens in the Valley, have waited for the federal government to designate the location of the wall,” she says.

Garza stands in front of his modest brick home, which he built for his retirement after 50 years as a migrant farmworker. For the past five months, he has stayed awake nights trying to find a way to stop the gears of bureaucracy from grinding over his home.

A February 8 announcement by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the agency would settle for building the fence atop the levee behind Garza’s house instead of through it, which has given Garza some hope. Like Tamez, he wonders why his home and small town were targeted by Homeland Security in the first place.

“I don’t see why they have to destroy my home, my land, and let the wall end there.” He points across the street to Hunt’s land. “How will that stop illegal immigration?”

[Rigs11]

Most border residents couldn’t believe the fence would ever be built through their homes and communities. They expected it to run along the banks of the Rio Grande, not north of the flood levees—in some cases like Tamez’s, as far as a mile north of the river. So it came as a shock last summer when residents were approached by uniformed Border Patrol agents. They asked people to sign waivers allowing Homeland Security to survey their properties for construction of the wall. When they declined, Homeland Security filed condemnation suits.

In time, local landowners realized that the fence’s location had everything to do with politics and private profit, and nothing to do with stopping illegal immigration.

http://www.texasobserver.org/article.php?aid=2688

[loborugger]

Just me thinking here...

If I wealthy, connected, a golf course, or whatever, I think I would want the fence. Afterall, while the fence, wall, whatever it is, will be only mildly effective, if folks know where there is a one or two mile void (or who knows how long), they will avoid breaching the wall and just cross where there is no fence. Therefore, my nice golf course is going to have paths beaten thru it. Somehow, I think it might discourage customers if they see a constant stream of illegals running thru the greens - esp if they are armed or carrying dope.

[Rohirrim]

This wall is nothing but political white-wash. A bunch of political fat cats are covering their asses. It has nothing to do with security. If we wanted real security we would put cameras up all along the border and hire agents to monitor them. The wall is :bs:

[Rigs11]

This wall is nothing but political white-wash. A bunch of political fat cats are covering their asses. It has nothing to do with security. If we wanted real security we would put cameras up all along the border and hire agents to monitor them. The wall is :bs:

actually the article goes on to say that Boeing got a contract to supply the cameras. Gee there's a big surprise.

[cutthemdown]

Obvioulsy the tax money from the rich golf course gets them more pull then an average person.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

As border tightens, smugglers raise their game

By Tim Gaynor


NACO, Arizona (Reuters) - When U.S. authorities raised a tall curtain of steel through this tiny Arizona border town to prevent people crossing illegally from Mexico, the smugglers on the south side were ready.
Using blowtorches and welding gear they burned a rectangular gate in the barrier large enough to drive a truck through, then they sealed it with a padlock to use it at their leisure, border police say.


As the U.S. government pushes ahead with an unprecedented security buildup along the porous Mexico border in this presidential election year, profit-hungry Mexican drug and human smugglers the length of the line are raising their game.


Border police are encountering ingenious and often simply brazen attempts to foil security at both the ports of entry and empty spaces along the nearly 2,000 mile (3,200-km) border by human and drug smuggling organizations.


"The more fencing and the more manpower that they see, the bolder the smugglers are becoming," Border Patrol agent Dove Haber said as she stood by the tall steel wall in Naco, which is patched most days by a busy repair team.


"Before we had the amount of technology and manpower and infrastructure that we have, they were able to operate with some impunity, and they don't want to see that change."


CARS FLYING THROUGH THE AIR


Illegal immigration is a hot topic in the United States, and both presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John. McCain and Democratic Party rivals Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton pledge to secure the porous Mexico border.
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN0662194320080310

[TailgateNut]

I'm part of the "shoot 'em when you see the whites of their eyes" crowd. Eventually they'll get the message.

[Spider]

I couldnt disagree more

[TailgateNut]

You're not bidding against companies who employ "questionable characters". It's getting a bit better now that the majority of municipalities require proof of employment eligibility from the contractors bidding on projects.
The private sector is still infested with illegals, but I generally do not venture into that "dog eat dog" world.

[Spider]

You're not bidding against companies who employ "questionable characters". It's getting a bit better now that the majority of municipalities require proof of employment eligibility from the contractors bidding on projects.
The private sector is still infested with illegals, but I generally do not venture into that "dog eat dog" world.

It is a dog eat dog world ,and I am wearing milk bone underware ...man I am ****ed today

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

I'm part of the "shoot 'em when you see the whites of their eyes" crowd. Eventually they'll get the message.

+1 :thumbsup:

[elsid13]

actually the article goes on to say that Boeing got a contract to supply the cameras. Gee there's a big surprise.

Why? There only few big defense contractors left, and they have diversified to continue to grow. And I bet if you look that RFQ, that 49% of work has to go to small businesses that work as subs to Boeing.

[TailgateNut]

Why? There only few big defense contractors left, and they have diversified to continue to grow. And I bet if you look that RFQ, that 49% of work has to go to small businesses that work as subs to Boeing.



The whole WBE, MBE game is a bunch of easily manipulated BS.