By Matthew Casey
Today’s top story published on khou.com and written by 11 News reporter, Angela Kocherga covers the town of Eagle Pass, Texas, and its fight to keep the U.S. government from constructing a fence on the border which it shares with the town of Piedras Negras, Mexico.
She writes, “Locals blame Washington politics for the fence. They favor more border patrol agents and improved technology, rather than a barrier that cuts through their communities.”
With all due respect to the experts at the Department of Homeland Security who came up with the current plan for the fence, is it possible they are making a huge blunder by not taking into account the wisdom and wishes of U.S. citizens who actually live with the consequences, good and bad, of the porous border with Mexico? It is this blogger’s opinion that they in fact are.
One of the most “sacred cows” in U.S. society is economics. And Kocherga reports that, “The sister cities share an economy which is bolstered by a common border culture. The people who live there converse easily in both English and Spanish, and all it takes to cross the border is a walk over the bridge.”
Considering our general “pro-commerce” attitude in the United States, why are we abandoning this stance to build an expensive fence that no one knows for certain whether or not it will have the desired on illegal immigration? If the results of “Operation Gate Keeper” and “Operation Hold the Line” have taught us anything, it is that constructing fences on the border only forces immigrants to seek out more remote and dangerous routes into the United States.
To me, it seems the residents of Eagle Pass have it right in their lobbying for more Border Patrol, and better technology instead of the fence. Their proposal, in fact, is a “win-win” situation because it would not harm an established economy, while at the same time creating more jobs for U.S. citizens during a time of economic uncertainty.
Granted, I am sure there are plenty of U.S. citizens living on the two-thousand-mile border with Mexico who support the plan to build the fence. But should DHS not at least hear both sides out before implementing such a hasty and expensive policy? U.S. citizens residing in communities on the border with Mexico will be forced to live with the consequences caused by building the fence. It is time for DHS to give them a voice, and a vote on the future of border security.