April 03, 2008

ain't nothing going to stop the border fence, not property rights, historic preservation, wildlife conservation, or plain old common sense (in admittedly very short supply among Republicans these days). No way the government can wait for the question of the individuals' rights to their own land.




It offers one unwelcome answer to the question that has been running through my mind recently: just how much damage can these bastards do in the next year?

MySA.com: Mexico: "BROWNSVILLE — Confronted with environmental concerns about proposed border fencing, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff used his power Tuesday to waive dozens of federal laws to clear the way for building it.

Chertoff's announcement followed a March 3 letter from a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service official pointing out that U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials had abruptly spiked a compromise the agencies were working on to protect an extensive riverfront wildlife refuge affected by a Hidalgo County fence-levee project.

He signed two waivers Tuesday, one of them negating 37 environmental, historic preservation and land management laws to speed 470 miles of fence projects in Texas, California, Arizona and New Mexico.

The other, which waived 27 laws, was specific to the 22-mile project in Hidalgo County that Chertoff, on a visit there on Feb. 8, had touted as a win-win plan to shore up worn Rio Grande flood control levees while creating a barrier to unauthorized entry.

Under the 2005 Real ID Act, Congress granted homeland security the authority to waive legal restrictions that could impede efforts to secure the border.

Chertoff that year used waivers for 14 miles of fencing near San Diego, Calif. Last year, he waived regulations for two stretches of fencing in Arizona. But this is the first time he has used a waiver in Texas.

"Criminal activity at the border does not stop for endless debate or protracted litigation," Chertoff said in a news release Tuesday. "Congress and the American public have been adamant that they want and expect border security. We're serious about delivering it, and these waivers will enable important security projects to keep moving forward."

Combining the fence with repairs to the levees had been suggested by local leaders fearful of potentially devastating flood damage, and the idea was quickly backed by U.S. Sens. John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Hutchison.

Hutchison on Tuesday praised Chertoff's action, calling it a "responsible approach to exercise his legal authority to keep the agreement with Hidalgo County that serves the dual purposes of flood protection and border security."

Hidalgo County Judge J.D. Salinas said the waiver was "responsive to the needs of our diverse border community."

But the fence-levee plan is unpopular among environmentalists, who say it will cut off endangered cats and other wildlife from their sole water source in parts of the Lower Rio Grande National Wildlife Refuge. The patchwork of preserves stretches about 275 river miles and is considered one of the most biologically diverse havens in the United States.

"We need for the administration and Congress to hit the pause button here and stop this outrageous, accelerated quest to finish a wall that most people realize not only will not work but will do more damage than good," anti-fence activist Jay J. Johnson-Castro said.

Eagle Pass Mayor Chad Foster, chairman of the Texas Border Coalition, issued a statement railing against what he said was "the largest waiver of U.S. environmental laws since the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, and we all know how well that worked out. Just ask the people of Valdez, Alaska."

Cornyn was reserving comment until he could be fully briefed, said his spokesman, Brian Walsh.

U.S. Reps. Solomon Ortiz and Ciro Rodriguez, both Democrats, expressed outrage. Ortiz called the waivers draconian, and Rodriguez said Chertoff was "selectively ignoring laws and the will of Congress."



and actually, just to further illustrate the inanity of this deal, the border fence is going to
effectively cede parts of the U.S. to Mexico.

Yup, the Republican party is pretending to build a fence to protect you from those hordes of Mexicans seeking to take away your job slaughtering chickens but is really forking over private American property to the Mexicans. It is a conspiracy!

BROWNSVILLE, Texas — The announcement this week that the federal government would waive a host of environmental protection laws for the border fence spelled almost certain closure to two nature preserves that support a growing ecotourism business in a struggling region.

"We'll have to close," said Anne Brown, executive director and vice president of Audubon Texas. "Basically you've moved the border."

The entire Sabal Palm Audubon Center and most of The Nature Conservancy's Lennox Foundation Southmost Preserve would end up in the no-man's land between the fence and Mexico.

The Audubon center attracts 10,000 visitors — primarily birders — annually to its 557 acres east of Brownsville. Trails wind through more than 30 acres of rare sabal palm forest.

Between the Audubon and The Nature Conservancy's sites, as well as some neighboring National Wildlife Refuge land, the last native groves of a sabal palm forest that once blanketed thousands of acres along the banks of the Rio Grande will be ceded to the Mexican side of the fence.

Fence planners have suggested they could add an access gate for its property, but the Audubon Society has dismissed that as unworkable once the preserve is behind a steel fence.


1 comment:

NO BORDER WALL said...

Obeying the law is not voluntary, it is mandatory, and Secretary Chertoff cannot legitimately claim to be sweeping aside a host of laws on the border in defense of immigration laws. In a nation of laws all laws must be respected, not just those that are convenient.

Equal protection under the law is meant to be a fundamental right shared by every American, but the Real ID Act makes the legal rights of citizens who live near the border conditional on Secretary Chertoff’s whims. Section 102 of the Real ID Act of 2005 states, “Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the Secretary of Homeland Security shall have the authority to waive all legal requirements such Secretary, in such Secretary’s sole discretion, determines necessary to ensure expeditious construction of the barriers and roads under this section.” No one else is granted this extreme power under any circumstance. The President cannot waive our nation’s laws even in times of national crisis, and Secretary Chertoff cannot waive the laws that protect citizens who live away from the border. Only border residents may have their legal protections waived.

The only reason for Secretary Chertoff to waive these laws is because he knows that construction of the border wall will break them. In announcing the Real ID Act waivers Secretary Chertoff said, "Criminal activity at the border does not stop for endless debate or protracted litigation." The waivers are an admission that the border wall will itself violate these 36 federal laws, making construction of the wall a criminal act. If Chertoff is genuinely concerned with criminal activity he should ensure that the agency that he oversees complies with the law. Instead, by setting these 36 federal laws aside, Secretary Chertoff sets himself above the law.

Congress must not allow unchecked power to remain in the hands of an unelected administration appointee. As James Madison wrote in the Federalist Papers, “The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands… may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.” Allowing one man to overrule laws passed by Congress and signed by the President for the express intent of circumventing judicial oversight is un-American.