AFT! (About time!)
Good grief people...first of all, the Governors could have activated the NG at any time, but didn't. No, they wait around for the FedGov to act, then feign relief like there was nothing they could have done without the FedGov. I call BS. Also, Bush has supported the fence idea for a year, but the Dems didn't like it:
May 2005 - The border fence provision is part of the REAL ID Act of 2005, which is attached to the House's emergency supplemental appropriations package to finance military spending in Iraq and Afghanistan.In a letter to Congress last week, the White House said, "The administration strongly urges [congressional] conferees to include the REAL ID Act of 2005 in the final version of the bill." The legislation also includes a ban on driver's licenses for illegal immigrants.The fences were finally approved by Congress and work has begun, but many sections have been delayed by environmentalists:Democrats are bristling over the Bush endorsement, with Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid saying he was "disappointed."
"The fact of the matter is Republicans did this in a very tricky way," Reid Spokeswoman Fabiola Rodriguez-Ciampoli told The Associated Press. "They knew that if they included REAL ID in the [military spending bill], it would be very hard to strike it out."
A corrugated metal fence that separates the USA from Mexico starts near here at the Pacific Ocean and runs 14 miles inland. It's a stained and rusty reminder that San Diego was once the place along the U.S.-Mexico border most often crossed by illegal immigrants. The government decided in 1996 to add two more fences with roads and stadium-style lights in between the rows to make it easier to stop anyone who tried to get across.Human Rights groups and local leaders also held it up,calling it "racist":The project has progressed so roughly 10 miles of the multiple fences and roads are built. But work on the final 3 1/2 miles or so has hit a snag: Border security is in conflict with environmental concerns.
At the forum, The Organic Collective distributed a statement that reads, “The Triple Border Fence embodies the most racist and violent face of so called ‘Free Trade’ which allows capital to flow freely across borders, but not the people who create the capital.”There is even a picture of National Guardsmen building the fence you say is non-existent at that website.The space for increased human right abuses was another concern expressed by several panelists. “(The triple border fence) creates a space of impunity for the Border Patrol,” Christian Ramirez, Program Coordinator of the U.S./Mexico Border Program at The American Friends Service Committee, said. “(Within the border fences) there are no witnesses to human rights violations,” Ramirez added.
Likening the proposed project to a U.S. version of the Berlin Wall, Enrique Morones, founder of Border Angels and Chair of the Border Commission to Mexican President Vicente Fox, said, “This fence gives the wrong message and it is hypocritical. The U.S. tells Gorbachev to take down their wall, and here our President still has his.”
Besides environmental and human rights concerns, the triple fence is seen as an insult to our un-consulted Mexican neighbor and as a nemesis to cooperative border culture.
Finally, if you don't have a clue what you are talking about, it is usually best to keep your mouth shut so you won't look like a fool. If you are on the internet, I assume you have access to Google...use it, inform yourselves.
I figured I'd better get my word in edgewise before the Bush Bashers {pardon the pun} migrated to this thread.