Perry was asked in New Hampshire by the Granite State GOP why he was opposed to a fence on the Mexican border.
He gave two reasons. Perry said: “The fact is, it’s 1,200 miles from Brownsville to El Paso. Two things: How long you think it would take to build that? And then if you build a 30-foot wall from El Paso to Brownsville, the 35-foot ladder business gets real good.”
1. It would take too long to build! Yes, this was really his answer! Apparently when Rick thinks about how to build a fence, he imagines starting at Brownsville and then slowly working your way to Tijuana! LOL.
2. His second answer: if we build a 30-ft fence, it will just spur sales of 35-ft ladders!
Yep, that’s right, forget the fence, because someone somewhere might try to climb it with a 35-ft ladder. Pregnant women, small children, what have you, are going to be scampering over that 30-ft fence with those 35-ft ladders just like they were stepping over a crack in the sidewalk. ROFL!
If fences are useless, Senor Rico, why not get rid of the fences at Texas jails and prisons? Why not get rid of fences at military installations in Texas?
After all, anyone with a ladder renders these fences worthless, according to Ricky. Never mind that where a modern fencing system has been installed on the border, such as in San Diego County, it has radically reduced crossings.
Oh wait, Senor Ricky would allow a fence to be built in some “strategic” areas of “some” urban areas. (Gotta make sure that fence doesn’t inconvenience his big $$ backers’ ability to get that cheap Mexican labor across the border!)
El Rico’s answer? Boots on the ground! A border with no fence, but boots on the ground! With no fence/patrol road as a force multipler to monitor the border, we would need far more of these “boots on the ground” just to pick up the trash after the illegals are long gone by the time the “boots on the ground” get there! (But that’s just the point, isn’t it, Senor Rick?)
And by the way, El Rico isn’t only opposed to a fence on the Rio Grande, he is opposed to a fence all the way to San Diego! No fence anywhere, except those “strategic” parts of “some” urban areas.
Oh, but the ranchers on the river! Whatever will the ranchers on the river do without being able to water their cattle in the deep, clean waters (okay, not so deep, not so clean) of the Rio Grande?
How heartless of you gringos to put the sovereignty and security interests of 310 million Americans ahead of the cattle ranchers of the Rio Grande!
But my favorite objection by the open borders anti-fence apologists?
The little butterflies!
We should not build the fence because dust from construction could coat leaves of trees on which butterflies feed!
“truck traffic has sent clouds of dust into the air, coating the tree’s leaves, which provide food for the...rare Thorne’s hairstreak butterfly.”
http://borderwallinthenews.blogspot.com/2010/01/border-fence-smugglers-gulch-project.html
Oh, the poor little butterflies! (Those cruel fence-builders!)
“Oh, but the ranchers on the river! Whatever will the ranchers on the river do without being able to water their cattle in the deep, clean waters (okay, not so deep, not so clean) of the Rio Grande?”
well if the rio grande could function as a moat then that would be a decent deterrent but it’s not an excuse to use to be against fencing all the other areas.
Meet the New Boss— Have you ever lived on the border? Probably not. So... I don’t know how to convince an overly paranoid gated community home owner with ADT Security service about the reality of the border.
Serious statement, even though I am being snarky.
And apparently once they are here, Senor Ricky isn’t willing to do a darn thing to discourage them from staying. That’s the part that bothers me more than discussions about a fence.
It's an absurd argument, comparing a small fence keeping an imprisoned population from excaping to the border between two countries.
Where are prisoners going to buy 35-foot fences?
The point is that it is going to cost billions of dollars and be a WASTE OF TIME AND MONEY.
How many people do you think it will take to build the fence? How much money? What if we took that money and paid those people to guard the border?
You'll have to guard the border anyway, even with a fence. You should build a fence where the fence actually decreases the number of people you need to guard the area. Like in populated areas.
BTW, How much of the fence is built today? We authorized the fence back in 2006, and for 5 years the "majority view" has been to build the whole fence, but we hardly have a whole fence built.
Did you know we can't stop everybody from shoplifting? Well, we could, but it would be cost-prohibitive. Stores understand that letting a few people get away with stealing is cost-effective.
We don't stop people from committing crimes either, we go after those who do, because it costs too much to try to prevent all crime. We aren't going to stop every poor mexican from crossing the border.
And even if you could make an impentrable fortress, it wouldn't solve the problem. A large number of illegals came here legally, through the checkpoints. They simply overstayed their welcome. Perry has a plan in Texas to control that, and is pushing for new policies that would make our guest worker programs more secure.
That's part of "border security". But some people just want to blow all of the money we don't have (14.6 TRILLION DOLLAR DEBT!!!!) on useless portions of fence that are easily circumvented, just because it makes them feel good to say so.