There seems to be a few planned holes in Homeland Security's proposed border wall. Not holes for people like Eloisa Tamez, for whom the proposed 18-foot wall would go directly through her backyard and destroy her property. No, those are holes planned in the wall for multi-million dollar resorts and homes:
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.
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.
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.
The Texas Observer attempted to call Homeland Security to ask how they decided to build the fence. Here's how that worked out:
The Observer called Homeland Security in Washington to find out how it had decided where to build the fence. The voice mail system sputtered through a dizzying array of acronyms: DOJ, USACE, CBP, and USCIS. On the second call a media spokesperson with a weary voice directed queries to Michael Friel, the fence spokesman for Customs and Border Protection. Six calls and two e-mails later, Friel responded with a curt e-mail: "Got your message. Working on answers?" it said. Days passed, and Friel's answers never came.
Then they tried to call a few congressional officers to see if they could shed some light:
Since Homeland Security wasn't providing answers, perhaps Congress would. Phone conversations with congressional offices ranged from "but they aren't even building a wall" to "I don't know. That's a good question." At the sixth congressional office contacted, a GOP staffer who asked not to be identified, but who is familiar with the fence, says the fencing locations stemmed from statistics showing high apprehension and narcotic seizure rates. This seems questionable, since maps released by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers showed the wall going through such properties as the University of Texas at Brownsville?hardly a hotbed for drug smugglers and immigrant trafficking.
So who's in charge of building this wall? Private contractors, of course:
Questioned more about where the data came from, the staffer said she would enquire further. The next day she called back. "The border fence is being handled by Greg Giddens at the Secure Border Initiative Office within the U.S. Customs and Border Protection office," she said.
Giddens is executive director of the SBI, as it is called, which is in charge of SBInet, a consortium of private contractors led by Boeing Co. The group received a multibillion dollar contract in 2006 to secure the northern and southern borders with a network of vehicle barriers, fencing, and surveillance systems. Companies Boeing chose to secure the southern border from terrorists include DRS Technologies Inc., Kollsman Inc., L-3 Communications Inc., Perot Systems Corp., and a unit of Unisys Corp.
By the way, this company was cited in Feb. 2007 by the government for "poor fiscal oversight and a lack of demonstrable objectives". In other words, they suck at doing things on schedule and on budget. And why were they awarded this contract? They gave a bunch of politicians a bunch of money. Who got most of that money you ask?
A majority of this money has gone to legislators such as Congressman Duncan Hunter, the California Republican who championed the Secure Fence Act. In 2006, Hunter received at least $10,000 from Boeing and more than $93,000 from defense companies bidding for the SBInet contract, according to the center. During his failed bid this year for the White House, Hunter made illegal immigration and building a border fence the major themes of his campaign.
I think this guy sums it up best:
Besides these personal tragedies, Eagle Pass Mayor Foster says there is another tragedy in store for the American taxpayer. A 2007 congressional report estimates the cost of maintaining and building the fence could be as much as $49 billion over its expected 25-year life span.
"They are just going to push this problem on the next administration, and nobody is going to talk about immigration reform, and that's the illness," Foster says. "The wall is a Band-Aid on the problem. And to blow $49 billion and not walk away with a secure border?that's a travesty."
You said it.
2008 J Monroe, all rights reserved.