Good Fences and Such
Congress says it's going to build a 700-mile barrier along the Mexican border. Don't hold your breath
Even if the 700 miles eventually materializes, there are still real questions about whether fencing works. "Agents can watch what happens on the U.S. side of the border," says T. J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, which represents agents. "On the Mexican side, though, anything goes." In Nogales, Ariz., where single-layered steel fencing slices through the hillside border, illegal immigrants have been known to prop up ladders, propel over the fence with trampolines, or shimmy through holes cut into the fence with blowtorches.
And there's plenty of opposition to the border barrier. Mexican Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez said last week he was considering raising the border wall issue in a meeting of the United Nations. There are also private-property issues, wildlife concerns, and right-of-way disputes that could further complicate the land acquisition needed for building. "The only option at this point is to do it yourself," says Connie Hair, a spokeswoman for the Minutemen border group. Last week, the Minutemen transferred dozens of steel beams and fiber-optic mesh to a dusty corner of Arizona in order to build almost a mile of fence on the privately owned Hodges Ranch. That's one way to do it. In the short run, actually, it may be the only way.
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