We're building a wall between our cultures

[AlphaCentauri]

Maria Elena Salinas

The University of Texas at Brownsville was the first to win a legal and moral victory over the U.S. government in its attempt to force Texan landowners to allow the government to build a fence on their property. The Department of Homeland Security was forced to drop an eminent-domain lawsuit against the university, one that sought to cut across its land to build part of the wall.
The infamous border wall would leave approximately 160 acres of the school's campus and golf course on the Mexican side of the border. The out-of-court agreement says that the two sides need to negotiate before any barrier can be constructed on private property.
The U.S. government has been able, so far, to build almost half of the 700-mile-long wall that aims to keep undocumented immigrants out of the country. It didn't have much trouble in California, Arizona and New Mexico because the fence was being built on government property. But once it reached Texas — where a good chunk of the fence would be built on private property — it ran into a bit of a problem.
Many Texans see the 18-foot-tall fence as a physical barrier between families, friends, commerce and culture. They don't want a wall that divides them, and they surely don't want it built on their property. So the government decided to sue more than 50 landowners to get access to their land, and some of them are outraged, including Mrs. Eloisa Tamez of the small community El Calaboz.
Tamez, a U.S. citizen, says her three acres of land — of the 17,000 original acres — have been in her family's name since 1767, when the king of Spain deeded it to her ancestors.
"With the construction of this wall, we are saying that in America we no longer have any democracy or freedom," said Tamez in a recent televised interview.
Some local elected officials are also upset. The mayor of McAllen, Texas, Ricardo Cortez, has referred to the wall — which will cost an approximate $49 billion to build and maintain — as a multibillion-dollar speed bump that will slow down immigrants but not stop them.
The idea of a virtual fence also has run into some problems. On Feb. 13, border officials in Arizona switched on the first phase of Project 28, a system that includes 98-foot unmanned surveillance towers that are equipped with radar, sensor devices and cameras. But the plan was put on hold after an investigation by the Government Accountability Office concluded that the effectiveness of the virtual fence fails short.
Still, you have elected officials in Washington who will stop at nothing to make sure the wall gets built.
Twelve Republican senators, led by Alabama's Jeff Sessions, have sponsored 15 new legislative measures to secure the U.S.-Mexico border, including the release of funds to continue with the building of the wall and other radical measures that could initiate a new round of fear for Americans and undocumented workers alike.
Among other things, the new proposals call for blocking federal funding to cities that bar their police from asking anyone's immigration status and for the deportation of any immigrant, legal or illegal, upon their first drunk-driving conviction.
Radical anti-immigrant groups such as the Minutemen and Let Freedom Ring are fueling the debate by asking their supporters to inundate Congress with calls, faxes and letters pushing for the approval of these drastic measures.
Sen. Sessions and his group should be listening to more sensible voices, such as that of Mrs. Tamez, who reminds us that "we celebrated the fall of the Berlin wall, and now look what happened to us here. Now we are building a wall to separate our cultures."
Surely there is a better way to keep our country safe than invading the private property of U.S. citizens to build useless barriers that undermine our good neighborly relations on both sides of the border.

http://www.azstarnet.com/allheadlines/231130

[Demeter]

1. The Truly Amazing Success of the Bush Regime Lies In Its Ability To Push

into completion the stupidest ideas floating around, while those with proven value are defunded, dismantled, ignored, or vilified. The solution to unauthorized immigration is prosecution of illegal employers.