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Homeland Security Builds Fence to Enforce Law; Waives Law to Build Fence
A month ago, Julia Whitty wrote that the government might be moving towards a saner approach to the border fence—environmentally speaking, anyway. Yesterday's news was not so sunny (and not so sane): the Department of Homeland Security announced that it will waive a host of federal environmental regulations in order to complete nearly 700 miles of border fence by the end of the year.
DHS insists that "the department remains deeply committed to environmental responsibility, and will continue to work closely with the Department of Interior and other federal and state resources management agencies to ensure impacts to the environment, wildlife, and cultural and historic artifacts are analyzed and minimized." Hard to see how they can possibly argue this when they plan to ignore the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, the National Historic Preservation Act, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Clean Air Act, and 28 other pieces of legislation whose scope includes everything from desert protection to Native American rights.
I wish I could say that this will be a tough sell, especially in those border communities already chafing at the government's heavy hand. But, sadly, it won't, because they don't have to sell it at all. The Department's authority comes directly from Congress, which amended a section of a 1996 law to allow the head of Homeland Security to waive regulations at his sole discretion. In short, legislators are so determined to build a fence that they'll ignore the ongoing, unified opposition of local leaders and environmental groups, and flout the law in order to enforce it.
Update: In the "nothing money can't buy" department, The Texas Observer reports that the fence will skip property owned by a major Bush donor.
—Casey Miner
Photo used under a Creative Commons license from Flickr user jcarter.
Bring the army home from Iraq and put it on our borders to protect us from those that enter our homeland illegally and steal our jobs and food stamps, not to mention the free medical care and schooling that the taxpayers pay for.
Hey Bill,
I am with you, station combat troops all along the boarder and use it as a continuous training tool. This would have the added benifit of stopping drug smuggling too..:-) But i am sure that some ACLU types would have a problem with stopping drug smugglers and potential "democ-rat" voters. They seem to forget that the railroads would have never been built if not for rules such as this.
Bill
Ah, were it but so simple.
The Romans and Chinese builts walls -- the US builds a fence.
Were it not for the US developers whose businesses thrive on the exploitation of cheap, illegal and virtually slave labour, the alien problem would no doubt be easier to fix.
As for the restriction on importing drugs, perhaps Mena, Arkansas might be a better place to post a guard.
Misha, you are right. California has a government strike force(Payroll tax and SDI) to go after employers that violate the laws in regards to payroll tax withholding and SDI, and workers comp, and etc. You get the picture. As a result, most of the illegals that come to California, go to other states where the tax enforcement is not so strict on these crooked employers. Crooked employers have an unfair advantage against the honest employer that withholds the taxes and pays the workers compensation insurance. It is up to the states to enforce these laws. Under the California Governor, the Great and Mighty Arnold, things on changing here. Arizona has there own law which took care of their problem. Unfortunately, Bush's state of Texas, is not into enforcing Texas law. But bring the troops home from Iraq today.
Lets be just a tad practical on this issue both as relates to "enforcing the law" and "keeping out borders safe". We don't want to enforce the law because if we had to pay "legals" to do the work illegals do, a Big Mac would more than double in price as would a lot of other goods and services. And a fence or wall isn't going to make the border safe, both because it won't cover but a tiny fraction of the southern border and because TERRORISTS DON'T HIRE COYOTES. This is all about the politics of fear by an adminstration that appears to have read only one book, MEIN KAMPF, and even that was probably the Classic Comic version.
hss46, your post is nonsense. Put down the toke for a few hours. Looks like you believe in exploiting the illegals and paying them slave wages. They are human and they deserve a living wage. The corporations and businesses keep the profits they make off the slaves, they do not pass it on to the consumer. Wake up. This is the exploitation of labor by the blood sucking capitalists. Workers of the world unite, you only have to lose the chains that bind you.