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As I see it Basham's Bullsh*t According to the Houston Chronicle, W. Ralph Basham, head of the border protection agency, told Congress last month that construction of all 670 miles of the fence would be completed or under contract by the end of December. But he did not promise to complete construction — a commitment Bush administration officials had previously made on Capitol Hill. This is complete nonsense. Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson made the fence commitment in an amendment to the Secure Fence Act of 2006. Some accused her of gutting the Act, but she countered by saying that her amendment required the construction of 370 miles of fence by 12/31/08. As of Oct. 2, the DHS Secure Border Initiative had completed only 123 miles of new fencing and some of that was being blown away. Based on past performance, it is very unlikely that the DHS/SBI will complete more than 160 miles of new fencing by the end of the year – less than half of what Senator Bailey said must be done, and that fencing is mostly only a single layer – not double layered as the original Secure Fence Act called for. Senator Hutchinson did, in fact, gut the Secure Fence Act. To deal with this problem, DHS is now saying that they are including old fencing in the 370-mile goal. For a number of reasons, this is complete nonsense. I gave the Houston Chronicle the facts but they chose to ignore them. To add insult to injury, even though Basham has admitted that our Border Patrol agents were detained at gun-point by Mexican Army troops, he hasn't bothered to plug the hole in the fence they drove through to get into the United States. The facts speak for themselves; Ralph Basham is just another bureaucrat who toes the company line. The company line of the Department of Homeland Security is "Make it look as if you are protecting the border without really doing it." |
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