Free Republic

More than two years after a precedent-setting move by the federal government cleared a path around environmental laws and legal challenges, the construction of a stretch of border fence across a deep canyon known as Smuggler's Gulch is set to begin next month. The project will require cutting earth from surrounding hills and filling in the canyon with more than 2 million cubic yards of dirt, an operation so large that critics fear disastrous environmental consequences. According to the latest plans from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the project will consist of constructing an earthen berm across the canyon...

ALTAR VALLEY, Ariz (Reuters) - U.S. Border Patrol agent Galen Huffman leans over the saddle to look at faint tracks in a cattle trail leading up from the Mexico border. He follows the tracks at a brisk trot through thick brush, up and down into rocky washes, then pauses as his horse twitches its ears and turns around nervously. "I have bodies," he says, as the first of a group of 11 illegal immigrants ... peel themselves up from the desert floor several miles from the nearest road. Horses have been part of the Border Patrol since the agency was...