WASHINGTON — The Obama administration officially has ended a high-tech southern border fence boondoggle that cost taxpayers about $1 billion.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says proven technology will be used in the future. She says technology will be tailored to local terrain and population density.
Napolitano said Friday there is no "one-size-fits-all" solution to the country's border security needs.
Congress ordered the high-tech fence in 2006 amid a clamor for more border security. The project yielded only 53 miles of protection.
Dale Whiting posted at 1:59 pm on Fri, Jan 14, 2011.
So what will McCain be saying now? Surely building that high tech fense at $2.8 million per mile was more than financially out of reach. What can we afford? Let's let the experts, not Boeing, tell us. Remember, Ike once told us to "Beware of the Military-Industrial Complex." I still like Ike! Don't you? Shouldn't someone be looking into Boeing's financial support of candidates? $1 billion is one heck of a heep of mulah![smile]
Edited by staff.
Slabside posted at 4:01 pm on Fri, Jan 14, 2011.
"Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says proven technology will be used in the future." Well folks, this means the Obama administration is going to KEEP DOING NOTHING about the sieve we call our southern border. Does this surprise anyone? Of course liberal Dale pins it on McCain as if he can over ride Nappy. Arizona is on it's own and we need leaders like Brewer and Pearce now more than ever!
albundy posted at 4:15 pm on Fri, Jan 14, 2011.
There is a video on youtube where it took 2 teen aged girls 18 seconds to climb to the top of this wall.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHjKBjM1ngw
Oh well the metal thieves will steal it and sell it for scrap iron.
rrjenn posted at 8:49 pm on Fri, Jan 14, 2011.
That fence never was a good idea. Now the double and triple fence they should be building works well. Where U.S.-Mexico border fence is tall, border crossings fall
In Yuma, Ariz., border patrol agents tout the success of a high
triple-and double-layered wall. But such a fence is unlikely to stretch the entire border. US border patrol agent Michael Bernacke says "This wall works. A lot of people have the misconception that it is a waste of time and money, but the numbers of apprehensions show that it works." The triple-and double-layered fence here in Yuma is the kind of barrier that US lawmakers – and most Americans – imagined when the Secure Fence Act was enacted in 2006. Now the fact is that Yuma was the hot spot for illegals and drug smugglers, but now it has shifted to where this fence wasn't built because of nappy and a demoRAT congress.
This sure makes the dimwitted Dale and the rest of his open border socialistas happy. Well no big deal we already knew the fence they stopped was useless. Now we need to push to get the Yuma fect rolling again.
rrjenn posted at 8:52 pm on Fri, Jan 14, 2011.
Yuma's formidable fence
In Yuma, at least, the fence seems to be preventing illegal border-crossings.
Bernacke, the patrol agent, says that since the triple fence was finished in October, there has been a 72 percent decline in illegal migrant apprehensions in the 120-mile swath of the US-Mexican border known as the Yuma sector. Eight hundred people used to be apprehended trying to cross the border here every day. Now, agents catch 50 people or fewer daily.
The 1.5-mile strip of triple fencing that cuts through suburban San Luis is the most impenetrable, says Bernacke.
That's because the three walls are separated here by a 75-yard "no man's land" – a flat, sandy corridor punctuated by pole-topped lighting, cameras, radio systems, and radar units, where unauthorized migrants can be chased down by border agents.
The triple-layer fencing begins at the San Luis port of entry, one of a handful of formal checkpoints where cars and trucks from Mexico line up, waiting for the US border patrol to inspect them for illegal contraband or migrants before they cross over. One-and-a-half miles east of San Luis, the triple fencing gives way to double fencing for about five miles, after which come another 39 miles of so-called "primary fencing" – a combination of steel mesh and steel panels fitted over bollards, or small metal and cement pillars, that stick up from the ground.
A steel wall, 20 feet high and reinforced by cement-filled steel piping. To his left another tall fence of steel mesh. Ten yards beyond, a shorter cyclone fence is topped with jagged concertina wire. Visible to the north, through the gauze of fencing are the homes and businesses of this growing Southwest suburbia of 22,000 people.
"This wall works," says Mr. Bernacke. "A lot of people have the misconception that it is a waste of time and money, but the numbers of apprehensions show that it works."
Dale Whiting posted at 2:05 am on Sat, Jan 15, 2011.
Guys,
Can't any of your read? I said, "Let the experts tell us what we need, not the military industrial complex." Now who do you suppose are the experts? Answer: The Border Patrol!!!!!!!
You guys create opponents where none exist. That is the first step down Jared's path!
rrjenn posted at 11:00 am on Sat, Jan 15, 2011.
You're right Dale, the border agents in Yuma say what we need is a double and triple fence 20 feet tall like we started to build but only completed in the Yuma sector. The government saw this fence as effective enough to virtually stop all illegal immigration so the nixed it.
Only people going down Jared's path are the liberturds that have made a multitude of death threats to Sarah and Glenn and and Rush and anyone else who champions capitalism and free enterprise over the Marxism this administration and the demorat party are trying to push on this nation.
Not sure why you're ranting about the military industrial complex. Do you have a conspiracy theory you want to share with us?
EmperorSmith posted at 11:40 am on Sat, Jan 15, 2011.
The Yuma section was just a show peace for politicians to go stand in front or ride along it. It does work but is it practical for all the border, I could argue for it but I have a lotech idea that might work just as well. Give the out of work Indians horses and radios. They are suppose to good trackers if they have not lost there way. Then when they come across intruders let them call in border patrol.
Richka posted at 2:58 pm on Sat, Jan 15, 2011.
Of course Obama wants open borders. That ensures him the votes from the relatives of the illegals that are already here in the US. Naturally I would vote for Obama if he lets my whole family come across and mooch of the american tax payers. That's the long and short of it. I also believe that this latest maneuver is connected to the failure of passing the Dream Act und his back door amnesty attempts.
We already have high tech on our border. All we need to do is let the border patrol use it. They shouldn't have to carry their weapons just for show. What is the deterrent for illegals to cross? It surely isn't chasing them down, supplying them with water, food and medical, return them to Mexico, only to catch them again a few days later. This cat and mouse game wouldn't go on if the border patrol was allowed to put some fear in the illegal aliens. Right now we're just the laughing stock for the rest of the world.
rrjenn posted at 11:11 am on Mon, Jan 17, 2011.
EmperorSmith, if the Yuma fence works very well as you stated, then why aren't we building it where it is practical? Obviously we need to use several different strategies depending on the location, and the Indians can be enlisted on the reservations bordering Mexico. None of these methods will work well as long as we do nothing to inhibit employers who blatantly hire illegals and allow foreigner's babies to automatically become US citizens just because their mothers gave birth to them on US soil. If we would just end the incentives to illegal aliens the situation would become a moot subject, and border security would be much easier to maintain.
Drug smuggling is another issue we could eliminate very simply by decriminalizing simple drug possession and use. Drugs are very easy to get in America, and decriminalizing simple possession wouldn't add to this problem. If you remember history, the Volstead act not only made alcohol illegal, but also helped create organized crime. When we decriminalized alcohol, organized crime moved to other drugs that were illegal. You see, it is the criminalization of drugs that make them lucrative to sell. If stupid people want to use drugs like alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, heroin, amphetamine, barbiturates, and other drugs then why not allow them to? The only way to give up control of who can get these drugs is to criminalize them. When you criminalize drugs, only drug dealers control who gets them.
EmperorSmith posted at 12:52 pm on Tue, Jan 18, 2011.
Of course I believe a similar fence system should be built along the hot spots. But nothing is full proof. So we need layers, Last I heard we where how many trillion in debt and out of work Americans. High tech lobbyist I would bet where the main pushing of the virtual fence. Construction works to build the fence and the 3rd back up i mentioned, 1st or 2nd line is border patrol.
I think should employers should be punished also.
rrjenn posted at 10:27 pm on Thu, Jan 20, 2011.
Here's why it doesn't matter how high a fence they build.
Ed Stoddard, Reuters, January 20, 2011
Over the past two years, as U.S. unemployment remained near double-digit levels and the economy shed jobs in the wake of the financial crisis, over a million foreign-born arrivals to America found work, many illegally.
Those are among the findings of a review of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and Census Bureau data conducted exclusively for Reuters by researchers at the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston.
Often young and unskilled or semi-skilled, immigrants have taken jobs Americans could do in areas like construction, willing to work for less wages.
Many of the new arrivals, according to employers, brought with them skills required of the building trade and found work in sectors such as construction, where jobless rates are high.
“Employers have chosen to use new immigrants over native-born workers and have continued to displace large numbers of blue-collar workers and young adults without college degrees,” said Andrew Sum, the director of the Center for Labor Market Studies.
“One of the advantages of hiring, particularly young, undocumented immigrants, is the fact that employers do not have to pay health benefits or basic payroll taxes,” said Sum.
Are you all proud to be Americans? Why? It means nothing anymore. You are less than an illegal alien who just stole across the border. Don't believe it? Go as Obama.
Masterrogue666 posted at 6:51 pm on Fri, Jan 28, 2011.
My solution: Two standard fences, and a sniper's tower every half mile. ANYONE (race notwithstanding) crossing in an illegal manner should be shot since they could be a terrorist.
Masterrogue666 posted at 7:02 pm on Fri, Jan 28, 2011.
I wonder why no comments are allowed in the next story. About the ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT with an AK-47!!!