April 01, 2008

Bush admin to build 361 more miles of border fence by end of year

From this:

The Bush administration plans to use its authority to bypass more than 30 laws and regulations in an effort to finish building 670 miles of fence along the southwest U.S. border by the end of this year, federal officials said Tuesday.

Invoking the two legal waivers — which Congress authorized — would cut through bureaucratic red tape and sidestep environmental laws that currently stand in the way of the Homeland Security Department building 267 miles of fencing in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, according to officials familiar with the plan...

...As of March 17, there were 309 miles of fencing in place, leaving 361 to be completed by the end of the year to meet the department's goal. Of those, 267 miles are being held up by federal, state and local laws and regulations, the officials said...

Some of those completed miles might actually just be things like vehicle barriers and the like, and some of those miles might not actually be completed at all.

In any case, this appears to almost completely be an election year stunt designed to give a boost to whoever wins the election. The primary intended beneficiary is John McCain, but Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton will also benefit. Whoever ultimately benefits probably doesn't matter all that much to whoever's finally decided to get most of the fence built, since all of them support amnesty and all will keep the cheap labor flowing one way or another.

And, of course, there's a good possibility that "something will come up" and what's being promised today will never happen.

The much more effective, long-lasting solution to the overall problem is not the fence but rather to discredit those who support illegal and/or massive immigration by asking them tough questions about their policies and then uploading their responses to video sharing sites.

Posted to Immigration2008a at April 1, 2008 01:49 PM