Agents to Patrol Border and Build Fence(Hello? Are the Army Corps of Engineers out of business?)

newsmax.com ^ | Aug. 14, 2007 | staff

[kellynla]

As if U.S. Border Patrol agents didn’t have enough on their hands, the agency is asking them to volunteer their help in building fences along the U.S.-Mexican border.

With the Bush administration withdrawing half of the National Guard troops sent to the border last year to build fences, a memo sent to Border Patrol sector chiefs acknowledged that the fence-building project would not meet Bush’s goal of completing 70 miles in fiscal 2007, which ends Sept. 30, "so the Border Patrol is now going back into the fence-building business.”

The memo asked the sector chiefs to provide a list of agents who "can and have built fences in the past,” according to the Washington Times. The Border Patrol, the memo stated, is seeking welders, equipment operators and "anyone else with construction experience.”

Rich Pierce, executive vice president of the National Border Patrol Council – which represents the agency’s 11,000 non-supervisory agents – told the Times that the Bush administration "on one hand is trying to convince the American public it is serious about immigration enforcement.

"Meanwhile, the other hand reduces the National Guard by 50 percent, whose job to build the border fences has hardly started. Now the Border Patrol agents who were meant to replace the National Guard are pulled from border enforcement and tasked with building the fence.

"The president’s game of pretending to enforce our border continues. He had never been serious about this issue at all.” In May 2006, Bush sent 6,000 National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexican border as part of "Operation Jump Start,” intended to provide the Border Patrol with time to recruit and train 6,000 new agents.

The Bush administration announced in early August that Operation Jump Start was "on track,” and the National Guard force on the border would be cut in half by Sept. 30, as scheduled.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection Deputy Commissioner Jay Ahern said the use of Border Patrol agents in constructing fences is "an appropriate use of resources.”

[Red Badger]

Around here they are responsible for the Intra-Coastal Waterways & bridges, Destin Harbor and Choctawhatchee Bay ship channels...........

[cripplecreek]

The Army Corps of Engineers are too busy going over the plans for my seawall to deal with something so unimportant as national security.

I know it’s not their fault but it irritates the hell out of me.

[Ajnin]

The memo is irrelevent. The fact is Border Patrol Agents have been taken from their duties to perform a number of other tasks. Building fences and barriers are only a few tasks that agents have been assigned to perform.

[Kimberly GG]

"at this rate, they might finish the fence in the next century..."


DUNCAN HUNTER, PRESIDENT '08....


Q: And is there funding actually, Congressman, for this fence, because I know there have been some critics that say although it passed in the House, there is no actual funding for it.

HUNTER: "Actually, there absolutely wrong, there’s 1.2 billion cash on hand that has already been appropriated that is available for the fence that is with homeland security right now. Last time I checked, there was 1.2 billion dollars cash on hand, now that wouldn’t build the entire 864 miles of border fence, but it would build a big, big chunk of it, and we need to get started. I checked with them about a week and a half ago, and I said how much have you got done, and they said a little over a mile, and I said you got about 862 and a half miles to go. So as president of the US, I can tell you this, I will complete that border fence in 6 months. And you simply put a number of contractors on it, you give each one of them a 1 or 2 mile section and you get the fence built.

NO other presidential candidate has made this promise to the American people!!

[Wonder Warthog]

"They only build levees................and not very good ones...."

Actually, the Corps of Engineers builds quite good levees. The problems happen when corrupt local and state politicians prevent them from doing so--which is what happened in New Orleans.

[cinives]

from the Mexican side.

[cinives]

That’s OK. The National Guard wasn’t actually allowed to guard the border either.

[justiceseeker93]

Don’t care who builds the fence, as long as the job gets done ASAP.

[tracer]

"Hello? Are the Army Corps of Engineers out of business?"

No, they're just on extended R & R as the guests of the New Orleans city government....

[GoldCountryRedneck]

They only build levees................and not very good ones....

Politicians get a hold of the funding and have a huge amount of control over the final product(s).

I don't blame the ACOE...

[mdittmar]

The Hoover Dam,one of the greatest engineering works in history,from start to finish,5 years.

But hey,this is a fence we're talking about.

[Red Badger]

HAve they no recourse to the IG or GAOI?...............

[Red Badger]

We should build a “Hoover Dam” across the Rio Grande!...........

[mdittmar]

Here's the difference between the Hoover Dam and the Border Fence,but we all know that,don't we.

"The president's game of pretending to enforce our border continues," he said. "He has never been serious about this issue at all."

[GoldCountryRedneck]

HAve they no recourse to the IG or GAOI?...............

I don't even begin to understand what goes into an ACOE project charter. Having relatives in the New Orleans area, I've heard stories of how levee money became casinos, hotels, bosses business deals, i.e., pork.

JMO, but the Corps, these days, operates in a far more politically-charged atmosphere than they did when conjuring up airfields and harbors during WWII.

Their scope should be re-directed back to military-oriented projects such as it was back 'in the good 'ol days'

Again, JMO....

[Issaquahking]

Duncan Hunter

Strong on Defense

Locally and Abroad!

Strong on the Fence!

Help him build the fence by electing this man!