Border issue moves into landowners' yards

Nicole Gaouette
LA Times
Sunday December 9, 2007

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration warned landowners along the southern border Friday that it would seize their property if they refused to cooperate with federal efforts to build a fence meant to slow illegal immigration.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said he would give landowners 30 days to indicate whether they would allow federal officials on their land to survey its suitability for fencing. If they decline, he said, he would turn to the courts to gain temporary access.

If the agency determines the land is appropriate for fencing and landowners refuse to cooperate, the department will turn to the courts to get title.

"The door is still open to talk, but it's not open for endless talk," Chertoff said of the time landowners have to respond. "We do need to get moving."

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He added, "We won't pay more than market price for the land."

Chertoff said that access to 225 miles of noncontiguous land, most of it in Texas and Arizona, was essential to meeting the administration's goal of building 370 miles of border fencing by the end of 2008.

Reaction was swift.

"I tell you, on this one issue, the Farm Bureau, the United Farm Workers, Democrats and Republicans, white, black, brown, everybody is against the border fence. It just doesn't make sense," said Juan D. Salinas, Hidalgo County judge in Texas.

Salinas, who is the chief administrator of the local government, said objections stemmed from economic, cultural and environmental concerns. "We've been trying to talk to them about using other ways," he said. "It's a disappointment that again the Department of Homeland Security is not listening to local taxpayers."

Chertoff also announced that his agency had given conditional approval to an experimental 28-mile combination of technology and physical fencing in Arizona that enabled border agents not only to detect intrusions, but to see what or who had crossed onto U.S. land. Cameras in the system are so powerful that they can distinguish between cattle and people from 10 miles away and can show whether anyone is toting packages and guns.

Border agents will test the system over the next 45 days and determine how it can be improved before a decision is made about whether to expand it.

Full article here.

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