Posted on 10/23/2008 7:07:22 PM PDT by homeguard
Edited on 10/23/2008 7:15:28 PM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
WASHINGTON, Oct 23 (Reuters) - The United States will miss its deadline to complete a security fence along the Mexican border this year, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said on Thursday.
"I don't think we're going to hit the nail on the head and be done by the end of the year," Chertoff told Reuters, adding that about 370 miles (595 km) of the planned 670-mile (1,070-km) fence had been completed.
Chertoff said he hoped when the Bush administration leaves office in January about 90 to 95 percent of the fence -- a controversial measure that has raised hackles both with Mexico and with U.S. landowners along the proposed route -- would be completed or under construction.
"We've gotten most of the way there. We will be very substantially close," he told Reuters in an interview.
Congress has mandated that the fence, which will eventually stretch from California to Texas to help stem the tide of illegal immigration, be finished this year but law suits have slowed its progress.
Our collective govts. (local, state and federal) really suck.
Can you imagine how productive we’d all be if govt. simply quit and got the hell out of the way?
ping
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