DHS Secure Border Initiative Delayed

DHS Secure Border Initiative Delayed Thursday June 21, 4:38 pm ET By Dan Caterinicchia, AP Business Writer

Lawmakers Ask DHS Secretary About Delay in Multibillion-Dollar Secure Border Initiative

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Technical issues are delaying the first leg of a multibillion-dollar project to build a high-tech fence along the nation's southern border to reduce illegal entry, the government said Thursday.

Some lawmakers are questioning why Boeing Co., the lead contractor, and staff at the Department of Homeland Security waited until a day after a hearing earlier this month to update Congress on the status of the "virtual fence's" initial phase.

That phase includes building nine towers, stretching along 28 miles of the Arizona-Mexico border bracketing the Sasabe, Ariz., port of entry. Boeing, the world's largest aerospace company, in September won a three-year, $67 million contract to install the fence, the initial step in a multibillion-dollar plan to reduce illegal entry along 6,000 miles of U.S. borders with Canada and Mexico.

At the hearing on June 7, no problems or delays on so-called Project 28 were mentioned, but the next day DHS officials notified congressional staff of a one-week delay due to radar problems, according to a letter questioning how and when Congress was informed.

The letter was sent Tuesday to DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff by House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and Rep. Loretta Sanchez, D-Calif., chair of subcommittee that held the hearing.

"It is unacceptable that the department chose to disclose this information via telephone to committee staff, rather than providing a thorough assessment of the project's status directly to committee members at the hearing," the letter says.

DHS spokesman Russ Knocke said Boeing did not tell the department about the radar issues, which were identified on the day of the subcommittee hearing, until June 8 when the information was promptly passed to the committee.

"It was coincidental, nonetheless, it's still not acceptable," Knocke acknowledged Thursday.

DHS officials called House committee staff Friday to inform them that Project 28 would be further delayed. In addition to the radar issue, Boeing also is working through technical glitches hampering complete camera coverage from all nine towers back to the common operating video terminals used by Customs and Border Protection agents, Knocke said.

Boeing set the original deadlines and has not provided a new target date for completion, he said, adding only that "we are moving with an absolute sense of urgency."

"The department's failure to be forthcoming and the repeatedly slipping project deadlines not only impede Congress' ability to provide appropriate oversight of the SBInet program, but also undermines the department's credibility," according to the letter, which asked Chertoff to "clarify the June 7 hearing record."

Chertoff will respond to the letter in the "near term," Knocke said, adding that most correspondence with lawmakers is handled "within a matter of days."

The House last week passed a $37.4 billion DHS funding bill that provides $1 billion for the project, but President Bush has said he will veto the overall measure since it exceeds the administration's request by $2.1 billion.

“Some lawmakers are questioning why Boeing Co., the lead contractor, and staff at the Department of Homeland Security waited until a day after a hearing earlier this month to update Congress on the status of the “virtual fence’s” initial phase.”

Because it’s a patent military industrial complex boondoggle.

The money saw the public move for a “fence”. Building a fence is relatively cheap, management and guarding done by civil service employees.

“Virtual fence” will need all sorts of expensive machines, 20 year service contracts, billions and billions to Boeing and contractors, part of which will be kicked back to Lott, Bush, etc. as donations of some sort.

Best thing about the virtual fence, it can be turned off!

Virtual fence is a real joke.

“How much does a fence cost to run down the middle of the Rio Grande?”

A hell of a lot less than it costs to feed, house, school and incarcerate the damned illegals!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

” — a river that regularly changes course, and which runs though some of the most wild regions in North America — “

So build the friggin wall 1/4 mile away from the trickle of the polluted cesspool you call the Rio Grande.

“which does not cut off MY access to water”

We’ll even build you a few sewer pipes to ensure you get all polluted water you can handle on your property.

“and which meets the requirements of the International Boundary Waters Treaty?”

Screw the treaty....hahahahahah there’s a WOT goin’ on there son!!!!!!

“And, it would be nice if it didn’t destroy the tourism industry we depend on down in my neck of the woods”

Tourism?

Ya got a lot of people watching the drug runners and coyotes down there?

LOL

Ya want a little cheese to go along with that whine?

"Border Reality 101"

This is what most of our southern border looks like: there is no government-built fence at all. There is often just whatever is left over from some forgotten cattle fence, built privately to keep U.S. cattle from wandering freely into Mexico. For hundreds of miles there is not even a broken cattle fence, there is nothing at all.

For comparison, below the broken cattle fence photo is a sample of an inexpensive but highly effective double border fence system, with a plowed strip to reveal footprints. This type of system is very cheap and can be built with great speed.

Here is what some of San Diego County has: a wall made of rusty Viet Nam-era runway mats. The corrugations are even horizontal, (to make climbing easier?)

Here is what the border looks like where the runway mat wall exists. Mexico begins on the other side of the ineffective rusty wall, which actually helps the smugglers, by hiding their movements until the occasional USBP vehicle has driven out of sight.

This is how "the game" is played. Smugglers hide on the other side of the wall with their dope and/or their illegals, out of sight of the USBP. They wait for the highly visible white BP vehicle to drive over the distant hills. Lookouts with cell phones and walkie-talkies report on the current locations of the BP units. They know with certainty that "the coast is clear" for an hour or two, and the smugglers and illegals hop the fence and run into the scrub only 50 yards away. From there, they are out of sight, and they walk 1-2 miles to holding houses. Then they wait for nightfall, and are picked up and driven in vans to LA or San Diego.

Next, we see the Duncan Hunter 15' fence, which is already being built along a few "showplace" miles of San Diego, mainly near the ports of entry, where panderng politicians can conveniently show it off to gullible reporters. As you can see, the rusty runway wall is seen at the left side, Mexico begins on the other side. In areas with the 15 foot fence, dope smugglers and illegals will have to cross the open sand ("the government road" as it is called) before starting to try to get over the 15 foot fence.

This new fence is extremely tough, and resists cutting. Attacking the fence would have to be done right out in the open, in full view of cameras. This type of fence, on the U.S. side of the government road, will give the USBP a barrier to patrol, instead of forcing them to chase illegals around 100,000 square miles of wide-open frontier land, which is a fool's errand. Everywhere this modern multiple fence system has been built, crossings by illegals drop to almost nil.

This ain't rocket science, folks. We're not talking about something like the Hoover Dam project, (which we managed to build 70 years ago). The world's last superpower, which put a man on the moon 35 years ago, can build a couple thousand miles of simple and effective fencing.

This is how it's being built in San Diego county, along the last 14 miles out to the ocean. The total cost of the entire fence from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific would be about 5 billion dollars, or what we spend medicating, hospitalizing, educating, and incarcerating illegal aliens just about every month. In other words, the fence would pay for itself immediately.

Or, we can continue our current policy.

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