16 September 2008
I don’t know who’s folly the border fence is but it’s turning out to be a very expensive white elephant that cannot even be sold on eBay. For starters it will not be finished, as required by Congress, by year-end. Because of skyrocketing costs and problems acquiring private land along the border of Mexico, things are grinding to a halt. I think that we have Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Protection to thank for the mess. If you can’t control illegals at the border then wall them out, is someone’s idea behind the fence. Aside from lots of poor Mexican people coming across the boarder with Mexico illegally, we have greater worries, I think, of actual terrorists illegally crossing our border with Canada. Another fence???
Plans to use tower-mounted sensors, surveillance equipment and other technology on the border under the “virtual fence” initiative do not have enough money to go forward. The Bush administration is blaming democrats for not passing funding legislation. Come on now, who wants to throw good money after bad? Disputes with private owners, mostly in Texas and potential environmental, construction and historic preservation are also causing delays. Almost sounds like a bridge to nowhere.
The virtual fence project is known as SBInet and is under contract to Boeing. Almost a billion dollars have been awarded for 6000 miles of virtual fence between the U.S. and Canada and Mexico. The initial goals have shrunk to a series of pilot efforts near Tucson next year. Is this another example of poor and impetuous planning?
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