The new fence would be a great deterrent to the steady flow of violent, predator and terror related criminals coming across the border. There is a lot of required repairs that need to be done. But one has to love the quotes given for building or repairing the fence. The private sector and common citizens can out perform the Government at any task for less time and less money. In the meantime the USA Today picks at America’s mindset and will to secure the border.
Note the picture. What a contrast between free Republic of America and the incompetant system that leaves the drug lords in charge and the people in poverty. It’s the picture of the border with the patrol truck overlooking the border.
SAN DIEGO — The battered ribbon of carbon-steel and wire-mesh fencing has divided much of this city from Mexico for more than a decade. It helped inspire the Bush administration’s plans for more than 700 miles of new fencing along the porous, 2,100-mile southwestern border.
Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., whose district includes part of the two-layered fence, touts the barricade as virtually impenetrable. “If you get over my fence,” the presidential candidate said this month during a debate in New Hampshire, “we sign you up for the Olympics immediately.”
Border Patrol agent Shawn Moran acknowledges the barrier has cut the flow of illegal traffic into the USA dramatically, but he also suggests Hunter hasn’t seen his fence lately. In spots along the approximately 75 miles of fence from California to Texas, illegal immigrants and drug runners have gashed the barrier repeatedly, often with saws to make holes big enough to squeeze people through.
Keeping the fence repaired has become a constant battle for U.S. Border Patrol and National Guard engineering units, whose work has added an increasingly expensive layer to the cat-and-mouse game between U.S. law enforcement and illegal immigrants. The rising annual maintenance costs — projected to reach $8.3 million a mile by 2016 for more than 62 miles of steel fencing examined by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) — have become a focal point for critics who say the plan to build another 700 miles of fencing will cost too much and won’t be effective as supporters claim.
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