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By Marion Edwyn Harrison, Esq.
April 09, 2008
This column on October 4 and December 7, 2006 and on April 5, 2007, the three columns following, discussed and updated the travails inhibiting construction of Mexican Border fencing. Such construction is authorized by the Secure Fence Act of 2006 (“Act”). Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff is an aggressive, competent and imaginative public official. He and the Department of Homeland Security now have figured out what appears will be a winning way to construct some fencing.
Homeland Security will issue two waivers, authorized by law, to waive pertinent legal requirements which probably blocked fence construction. The legal details need not be set out. In summary, one waiver applies to environmental and land-management laws affecting pertinent areas in Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas - about 470 miles total. The other waiver applies to about 22 miles in Hidalgo County, Texas, relating to flood protection. Homeland Security, needless to say, has coordinated with the Departments of Agriculture and Interior.
Both waivers were promulgated on April 1, 2008. They are no April Fool - they direly are needed and directly are serious.
It is essential that the intent of Congress in enacting, and of President George W. Bush in signing, the Act be implemented. The longer the Border is mostly physically open the more crime, much of it very serious, will infest Border State residents as well as both lawful immigrants and unlawful immigrants. Further, the longer there are those huge gaps the more unlawful immigrants will enter our country.
Marion Edwyn Harrison is President of, and Counsel to, the Free Congress Foundation
The Secure Fence Act of 2006: A Shrinking Goal? - April 5, 2007
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