Work on the project was halted by a judge earlier this month because the government did not conduct a complete environmental impact study. But, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff used his power on Monday to bypass laws for the project.
Carmen Mercer, vice president of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, said she was happy to hear the news.
 A group of illegal immigrants hikes at night into the United States along the San Pedro River, in this infrared photo taken by the American Border Patrol (not to be confused with the federal government’s U.S. Border Patrol). Based in Sierra Vista, American Border Patrol is a private, nonprofit organization that opposes illegal immigration. (Courtesy of American Border Patrol) |
“Our ultimate goal is to secure the border with a fence,” she said. “I think it is awesome that Michael Chertoff has made that decision to keep on building it.”
She added the group would like to see the government build a “more stable” and “stronger” fence, but she noted “at least it’s a start.”
Mercer, who lives in Tombstone, said “the fence is an absolute must” because it will help “protect endangered alien women who are being raped in the desert and are being abused in the desert because they are used for trafficking and for sex and pornography.”
Peter Young of Citizens for Border Solutions, a Bisbee group that is part of the No More Deaths Coalition, said the fence is “unnecessary.”
“The Border Patrol runs a lot of sensors in that area because they know it is heavily trafficked. The sensors, I think, have proven to be effective, and, in our opinion, this whole wall-building fiasco is a public relations appeasement of the American people,” he said.
He said walls and vehicle barriers don’t prevent illegal immigrants from crossing the border.
It takes as little as 15 seconds to get over the wall, and ladders are available for rent in Naco, Sonora, Young said. He noted a photograph was recently published in the New York Review of Books showing eight men climbing the wall in downtown Douglas.
Glenn Spencer, president of American Border Patrol, a nonprofit border-watch group based in Sierra Vista, said he is pleased with the decision to move forward with the fence project.
“I must tell you that I am beginning to feel that Mr. Chertoff and the administration might well have gotten the message from the American people,” he said.
Spencer, who noted he is not a biologist, said the fence would pose “no risk to the environment, as far as I know.”
“Just from a visual standpoint in looking at it, it just doesn’t make any sense,” he said.
Young said the fence could have a negative effect on animals, such as pronghorn antelope.
“The antelopes that live on the U.S. side are a rather small and diminishing population, and they will genetically suffer if they are not able to breed with the larger population on the Mexican side of the border,” he said.
“If their population is cut in half like that, it’s going to continue the degradation of these rare species populations for sure,” he added.
Herald/Review reporter Jonathon Shacat can be reached at 515-4693 or by e-mail at jonathon.shacat@bisbeereview.net.
