Thursday, November 14, 2024

Immigration Bill Calls for More Border Fencing

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Many U.S. citizens are questioning the effectiveness of one of the requirements under the bill for comprehensive immigration reform that would drive fencing across the United States’ nearly 2,000-mile border with Mexico if passed by Congress.

“It doesn’t do what proponents think it does,” said Rep. Filemon Vela, of Brownsville, who resigned from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in protest. “Building more fences makes no sense to me.”  Vela is one of the three Democratic congressmen from the Texas border who support immigration reform but are against any bill conditioned on the construction of more border fence.

According to many Texas residents, additional fencing would require the government to seize more land where hundreds of people have already lost property during the last fence construction spree. Instead, farmers and others, who live near the fence and have reported seeing immigrants scale the 18-foot steel columns in seconds, favor increasing the number of agents patrolling the area because that would at least create job opportunities.

The fence’s backers say fencing is a common-sense solution to keeping people from crossing the border. But U.S. Customs and Border Protection have failed to come up with any measurement of the fence’s effectiveness. The agency told Congress’ investigative arm last year that it needed three to five years to make a “credible assessment.” However, a few residents still believe that the new fencing proposal could actually benefit them despite what others may believe.

“I think it will be a great thing,” said Julie Garcia, who works in the oil fields. “It’s like the same thing at your house — you build a fence to keep people out.”

Fox News Latino