Covering the border fence sometimes feels like a South Texas adaptation of “Waiting for Godot.” Lawsuits are filed, protests are staged, the Government Accountability Office and the Department of Homeland Security clash over construction timelines. And here in Brownsville, we wait.
At the Herald, we continue to chase the bureaucratic apparition. For some time, we’ve been reporting on a barrier that is, as of yet, invisible.
In the last week, both the federal government and the Texas Border Coalition, a group of border politicians who oppose the fence, have filed lawsuits.
The 16 lawsuits that the government filed in Cameron County mark the first round of permanent land condemnation suits–eminent domain in its most traditional form. The only question now is how much (heretofore obstinate) landowners will be compensated. Many are unhappy with the feds’ initial offers.
Once those suits are settled (though there will be far more than 16 when all is said and done), there will be no judicial roadblocks to stop construction of the fence. That gives DHS less than six months to meet its self-imposed deadline.
I spoke to a group of landowners along the border today, most of whom are waiting on specifics.
“Until it’s built, we don’t have a problem,” one of them told me. At least from what I saw this morning, not a single segment of fencing has yet been erected.
Still, the waiting game is wearing on border residents. And, for some, the longer it stretches out, the harder it is to conceive of the 18-foot-barrier. If it the process has been delayed this long, the thinking goes, what’s to say it won’t be ditched entirely?
Border residents aren’t just waiting to see if the fence is built, they’re waiting for details. Many won’t know how they’ll be affected until they know the specifics of the fence’s trajectory. But even the simplest questions (What will it be made of? What color will it be? Will it run through my frontyard or my backyard?) have eluded landowners so far.
As we prepare to celebrate the third anniversary of the Secure Fence Act, it’s starting to feel–despite our better judgment–that these answers will remain elusive, that the border fence will remain something we talk about, instead of something we see.
The Fence is not going to happen…these lawsuits will take us up to a new President and none of the three left standing will build the fence, at least not in the valley. They may put one up in the desert in Arizona, and brag about how well it works, but not here in the RGV . McCain is filthy rich, thanks to bud drinkers, Clinton has millions in the bank, and Obama, will be a poster boy (sorry about that word) for the Left, and will come out of this election either as President or as a very very rich individual. The rich get richer on the backs of an underclass, and illegals provide fodder for the cannon.
If we are ever going to get a handle on illegal immigration, smuggling people and smuggling drugs than “YES” I do support putting up a fence on every piece of land between Mexico and the US.