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Letter to the Editor: Tucson Citizen
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Subject: Fence tailored to border needs, Tucson Citizen, October 27, 2007In your report you say that 103-miles of new "fencing" has been built in the Tucson Sector. Your use of quotes suggests that you are using a loose definition of fencing, which is the case indeed. Moreover, one wonders where the 103-mile figure came from.
As part of its Operation B.E.E.F., American Border Patrol performs aerial surveys of the border each month. Our most recent survey was completed on October 1.
Most of the new "fencing" in the Tucson Sector isn't fencing at all, but vehicle barriers, 24.6 miles of which is constructed from railroad rails cannibalized from the historic San Pedro & Southwestern Railroad.
About twelve miles of the railroad rail fencing is just east of Nogales, where there are many breaks and many places where the barriers have been washed away. Moreover, it could be a simple matter to drive over these barriers using 2" x12" planks but, with so many breaks and washouts, why bother?
There are 36.1 miles of new bollard-type vehicle barriers, thirty-four miles of which is at Lukeville. These too could probably be defeated, but it is probably simpler merely to drive around them.
You say there are 28-miles of new fencing of the bollard-style consisting of "6-inch pipes" "16 feet high." Actually, in the Tucson Sector most of this type of steel beam construction is used for erosion control on pedestrian barrier fencing near Naco and Douglas and, at most, there is a mile installed. Most of the new pedestrian barrier fencing is of a mesh design. Steel beam pedestrian fencing is used to good effect at Columbus, New Mexico, however.
The Tucson Sector covers about 310 miles of Arizona's 350 mile of border with Mexico. According to the Secure Fence Act of 2006, all but 25 miles of the Tucson Sector, or 285 miles, is to be protected with a double layered fence.
In the past year, or since the signing of the Secure Fence Act, a total of 14.8 miles of actual fencing (pedestrian barriers) in the Tucson Sector that had been added. None of the new fencing complies with the Secure Fence Act.As proven in San Diego, a properly designed double fence can significantly cut illegal immigration and drug smuggling.
It is important that the people now if our government is living up to its promise to secure the border. Thus, it is important that we report the truth about the border.
Finally, you reported as follows:Such a fence isn't enough for Glenn Spencer of the anti-illegal-immigration group American Border Patrol.
"They're just a tiny town," Spencer said. "We have a nation of 300 million people to protect."
Spencer wants a buffer of land condemned, leveled and left barren on the U.S. side of the border in Nogales.
"They should condemn all those homes and get them out of there," Spencer said.I want to make it clear that I was speaking of the immediate area just north of the border where the only thing that separates private property and the Mexican border is a public road about twenty feet wide. The many drug smuggling tunnels that have been found on the border in Nogales are reason enough to provide greater security on the border at Nogales.
Yours truly,Glenn Spencer
President
American Border Patrol
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