Challenges Arise to Border Fence Project

[flashl]

Source: NY Times

Securing the nation’s borders is so important, Congress says, that Michael Chertoff, the homeland security secretary, must have the power to ignore any laws that stand in the way of building a border fence. Any laws at all.

Last week, Mr. Chertoff issued waivers suspending more than 30 laws he said could interfere with “the expeditious construction of barriers” in Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas. The list included laws protecting the environment, endangered species, migratory birds, the bald eagle, antiquities, farms, deserts, forests, Native American graves and religious freedom.

The secretary of homeland security was granted the power in 2005 to void any federal law that might interfere with fence building on the border. For good measure, Congress forbade the courts to second-guess the secretary’s determinations. So long as Mr. Chertoff is willing to say it is necessary to void a given law, his word is final.

The delegation of power to Mr. Chertoff is unprecedented, according to a report from the Congressional Research Service. It is also, if papers filed in the Supreme Court last month are correct, unconstitutional.

NY Times

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/08/us/08bar.html

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The delegation of power to Mr. Chertoff render the Constitution a "dead letter".

[harmonicon]

1. How could giving one person power to ignore laws as they see fit be unconstitutional?

Next thing you know, they'll be all up in arms about crap like "one person, one vote", and the bill of "rights". Liberal nutbags.

[DeepModem Mom]

2. K&R! There are some folks in parts of the country close to this fence...

who are mad as hell about it!

[nichomachus]

3. I know I am

I'm considering Mexico as my escape route out of the hellhole this country will become if McCrazy gets in. It's still possible to get permanent residency and citizenship quite easily in Mexico.

I don't want no stinking fence.

[DeepModem Mom]

4. Yep. Besides opposition to the idea of it, where, as one Mayor said...

the border connects people instead of dividing them -- there are such everyday, but important, matters like cattle drinking water on both sides of the border. The fence is insane.

[Acadia Blue]

5. Anyone should be able to just walk into America. Why not? We

are protecting Iraq and thats enough to keep terrorists out. And we have to help the very corrupt corporatist Mexican government make its drug money. The Mexican government is more important than American laws, right?
We can't have legal immegration because then the corporatist pigs will have to pay at least minimum wage. Thats what its really about.

Money for business. Enslavement of already enslaved Mexicans and propping up another corrupt governmet.

I bet if we could really look under the linen, we would find that our own government is as corrupt and in on the drug and human trade.

[flashl]

6. Dirty Linen ...

Citigroup, the Largest Drug Money Laundering Bank in America Buys Mexican Drug Laundering Bank Banamex

Wall Street, CIA and the Global Drug Trade

Forbes - Money Laundering Banking On Drugs

A money-laundering scheme involving a Mexican exchange house has again put U.S. banks in an uncomfortable position. This time Wachovia (nyse: WB) and Harris Bank are in the hot seat.

(Human Rights Watch) U.S.: Efforts to Combat Human Trafficking and Slavery

Human Trafficking in the U.S. is as out of control as the 'war' in Iraq or its 'war' on Drugs

[intheflow]

7. What about a Canadian fence?

Makes more sense since the most recent news I could find on terrorist infiltration risks points to Canada:

CNN (Oct. 2007): Report: Security on U.S.-Canada border fails terror test

Christian Science Monitor (March 2005): US-Mexican border as a terror risk
(I found more recent examples of a Mexican border threat from 2006, but the most "legit" new source carrying that story was Fox. 'Nuff said.)

Oh, wait. I forgot. Canada is a predominently white country, so obviously terrorists wouldn't come from there. :sarcasm:

[nichomachus]

8. If we could fence Texas off from the rest of the US, that might work . .

[intheflow]

9. Naw, it'd still violate the

Endangered Species Act. Plus it'd disenfranchise the feisty Dems living in Texas.

Don't scoff! I met a whole bunch of Texas DUers when I went to Houston after Katrina, and they were by far the most enthusiastic and hard-working Dems I've ever met anywhere. You have to be devoted and tough to be a Dem in Texas! :)

Edited to add... I wouldn't mind a certain ranch being fenced off from the rest of the US as long as it's poisonous "Bush" animal was confined within its borders. :P

[XemaSab]

12. EVERY DEM SHOULD BE AWARE:

The MOST "blue" counties in the COUNTRY are along the Mexican border in Texas.

More democrats per capita than SAN FRANCISCO.

But not as democratic as that one county in ALABAMA that the Tuskeegee Institute is in. :P

[superkia]

10. I dont think one day about terrorists coming into our country from...

any border, if the system is corrupt, the way it looks it is, the so called terrorists will be given access to what ever they need. If any terrorist was ever caught coming into our country, it would probably be the border from the north because none of our politicians want any firm reason to control the southern border at all. Like mentioned by someone above, too much money for the corrupt coming from that open southern border.

[XemaSab]

11. The few times I've been across the Canadian border

it was a total joke.

The last time (circa 2004) my mom and I had a fully loaded Honda Element.

The woman at the border crossing glanced in the car and asked if we had anything to declare. My mom said "Here are the veterinary papers for the dog," and the woman was all like "What dog?"

We had some clothes on top of the sky kennel, and she hadn't realized we had a LARGE dog in the back.

[intheflow]

15. I know.

I go through Canada to get from my mom's house in Michigan to my son's house in New England. Easy-peasy! None of the hassle of Mexican border crossings.

That whole region has been politcally racist since the get-go, starting with the Mexican-American War in the 1840's. (Well, you could date it back to Columbus or at the very least the American Indian Wars, but I'm talking specifically about the obsession with the US-Mexico border.) Ironically, though US immigration policies began on the Mexican border, they weren't designed to keep out Mexicans. They sought to stop Chinese immigration in the 1880's. x(

[XemaSab]

13. I work in the environmental consulting field and this is patently ILLEGAL

The key issues here are the Migratory Bird TREATY Act, which is a TREATY which we have signed with Mexico and Canada, among other countries, and ALL KINDS of TREATIES with SOVEREIGN NATIONS within our borders.

We can't just kill species and DESTROY Native American SACRED SITES and GRAVES... these are TREATIES which we have signed with other countries.

[NMDemHispanic]

14. The Border Fence Is A Joke Anyway

As a resident that lives near the border, it would not matter if they put of a castle wall with a moat on the border. Immigration is a political hot potato with no current basis in reality. Meanwhile, many of us who live nearby see the fence as a symbolic but foolhardy social experiment. Republican fear mongering and taxpayer waste.