per my #490 and Bob’s suggestion that the family get a lawyer.
People and cities have tried and lost.
http://www.samuellogan.com/articles/texans-fence-with-federal-authorities.html
The Patriot Act and the empowerment of the Department of Homeland Security to build the fence where they want were reinforced by the Secure Fence Act in 2006, and the DHS, Chertoff, and now Napolitano weren’t and aren’t looking for any local input or compromise.
The Feds admit that the fence only slows down crossers. That article above says,
“””Border Patrol has admitted this border fence will only slow down the illegal entry by about three to four minutes, and at a cost of US$49 billion, we just don’t think that’s good enough.”””
So, this family lost access to 15 acres of prime riverfront hay pasture without compensation and without a noticeable effect on the illegals crossing their land.
We’re talking about hundreds of miles of similar stories.
If you want to read a slightly left-leaning review of the state’s border efforts over the last 10 years, here’s one from a year ago. The author ignores the several times that gunshots have crossed the Rio in El Paso and tries to condemn Texas for catching illegal aliens at all, but the then-historical parts make us look good.
http://bostonreview.net/BR35.5/barry.php
Well they got a crappy lawyer if he thinks the Patriot Act supersedes the 5th Amendment. In other words, I don’t buy it.
I have warned people of Gov expansion.(Homeland security)
Mr Cain wants to hand them a National sales tax
As usual, an excellent post.
But I fear people that don’t live in rural communities will “get it”.
The Border argument is far from rational these days . I have tried countless times to point out the futility of much of this.
if I was a bad guy in Mexico and looked up and saw an electric 50 foot tall fence
I think I would head to one of 2 coasts (the Pacific Ocean or the Gulf of Mexico).
There I would buy or rent a boat and and head north for an hour or two.
It will be real real hard to put up a fence up and down both coasts
This is not to say fences and the military are a total waste. I think the more we do the fewer criminals and the fewer illegals we will have....and we need to do it. However keeping all bad guys out is not possible and it is certainly not cost effective....and I doubt an electric fence makes much sense