Border barrier to skirt Rio Grande, avoid private land
Walls and levees along the U.S.-Mexico border are planned under a federal deal with local officials in Texas.
MCALLEN, TEXAS — In a bid to overcome angry resistance to the government's planned border barrier, federal officials have agreed to run a contested section close to the Rio Grande rather than slice through miles of private land.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced the agreement with Hidalgo County officials Friday, hailing it as a precedent that could be echoed in other parts of the state where resistance to the barrier has been most intense.
"It's a great model for what we can do," he said.
"We are always interested in blending community needs and security."
The idea to build a combination of 18-foot-tall walls and levees along the Rio Grande in the southern Texas county began as a quick sketch on a napkin. The final plan was the result of collaboration between federal and local officials, some of whom initially opposed a physical barrier.
Lawmakers and Texas officials gathered at a Border Patrol station in McAllen to praise the arrangement for meeting national security requirements without strangling the close economic, social and cultural links between Mexican and U.S. border towns.
"This is a city named after a Scottish man in a county named after a Mexican war hero," said Rick Perry, the state's Republican governor, who also cited Texas' 34% Latino population to illustrate the rich cultural mix that binds the border region and Mexico.
Perry praised Chertoff for his willingness to listen but chided others, particularly conservative radio and TV hosts, for touting simplistic solutions to a complex problem. "To them the border is a line on a piece of paper, a problem that is easily solved. The fact is they're just wrong," he said.
Even as officials celebrated the agreement, local groups continued to raise concerns.
The day before, a local coalition opposing the barrier called on the Department of Homeland Security to delay the plan until a thorough study could be conducted on the environmental effect. "We are concerned that DHS intends to push through the idea of a wall-levee combination in the Rio Grande Valley before it has been thoroughly evaluated," Stefanie Herweck, a spokeswoman for the No Border Wall Coalition, told local media.
Texas accounts for 1,600 miles of the 2,000-mile divide between the U.S. and Mexico.
Homeland Security has committed to building 670 miles of barriers along the border by the end of the year. (The agency already has about 107 miles of pedestrian fence and 130 miles of vehicle barriers.)
