Border fence nearly doubles - After reporting sluggish progress last month, U.S. officials announce the stretch of barriers has grown to 145 miles.
san luis, ariz. -- The federal government's border fencing effort has accelerated rapidly in recent weeks with barriers rising in towns from California to New Mexico and workers completing the longest stretch of continuous fencing on the U.S.-Mexico frontier.
The Department of Homeland Security reached its goal of completing 70 miles of new fencing by the end of this month, nearly doubling the length of barriers on the border to about 145 miles.
"When we make a commitment, we will carry through on the commitment," said Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who went to Arizona on Friday to mark the progress and welded part of the fence in the town of Douglas.
Whether the new fencing slows illegal immigration remains to be seen, but the project is a milestone in another way. Once limited mainly to cities, fencing along the 1,952-mile border is now going up in rural areas, where much of the illegal immigration traffic has shifted in recent years.
Fleets of tractor-trailers loaded with fence posts and steel tubing have been crossing remote highways and deserts. Crews of National Guard troops spend hours welding raw materials under tarps. In some areas, contractors are installing the barriers at a pace of about half a mile per day.
A line of towering steel now slices for about 32 miles through a sea of sand from San Luis to the Tinajas Altas mountains. The fence, built to prevent incursions on the Barry M. Goldwater Range, is now the longest on the border, more than twice as long as the 14-mile fence separating San Diego from Tijuana.
"This is going to be a rude awakening for the crowds [of immigrants] that come in the fall," said Welby Redwine, a Boeing Co. engineer overseeing work in a canyon crisscrossed by smuggling trails in the Tinajas Altas mountains, 40 miles from the nearest town. "When they see it they're going to say, 'Wow, what happened?' "
In the vast Altar Valley, where hundreds of immigrants have died of dehydration over the years trying to reach Tucson 70 miles away, a 15-foot-high steel-tube fence is rising. Authorities hope the fence can slow the busiest illegal immigration corridor in the country, where more than 1 million people have crossed in recent years.
In Calexico, Calif., the same style of fencing will block a 7-mile stretch where smugglers have had easy access to launch boats across the All American Canal into California.
- Border Barrier Approved Sep 30, 2006
- Disgusted by the border fence Oct 06, 2007
- U.S. Asked to Overrule State on Border Fence Mar 02, 2004
