Southwest Texans Not Unified on Prospect of 'The Wall' across the U.S.-Mexico Border

February 11, 2008
By Bill Sontag
Feature Writer

If they build a 15-foot wall, hardware stores in Mexico won’t be able to keep 16-foot ladders in stock.
                                                                -- Conventional wisdom, overheard in San Antonio

“Well, just yesterday morning they ran over one of our officers and killed him in California, because they could just drive into our country without being stopped,” lamented James Blocklinger, Sunday (Jan. 20).

Blocklinger, retired Del Rio sector assistant chief, recounted the assault on U.S. Border Patrol Agent Luis Aguilar, 32, the morning of Saturday, Jan. 19. The culprit was Jesus Navarro Montes, a suspected drug smuggler scrambling back to Mexico in a Hummer through the Bureau of Land Management’s Imperial Sand Dunes. The vehicle allegedly driven by Montes entered the U.S. illegally, and was being pursued as agent Aguilar laid spikes to slow the target.

A stout border fence might have been helpful, but opponents to the barrier some have dubbed “a wall of shame” believe it would be ineffective and extravagantly expensive. There are sparse—though strident—protests on immigration issues, mostly in metropolitan areas far from the border. There’s no rest from the rhetoric about the issue on Main Street, and no shortage of noise about it on television cable news. But putting illegal immigration into check is generally a popular concept.

Curbing illegal immigration is far less polarizing than all the chatter about how to do it. And the proposed border fence, wall, or whatever nickname one applies to the federal government’s barrier against unwanted border crossers, yields reactions passionate and diverse, as one might expect in a free society struggling to recapture a threatened national identity.

Some blame the whole problem on the North American Free Trade Agreement, and its reputation for a slackened emphasis on the importance of a meaningful border. Others point to a federal government that has turned a blind eye to a rising problem, enforcing existing laws poorly or not at all, and now—too little, too late—aiming to slam the door shut. Many fear that it’s a screen door.

Others, of course, point out that the nation has decried and feared “tides” of immigrants before—Italians, Germans, Irish, Chinese to name a few—and wonder what became of Emma Lazarus’ s invitation, giving voice to the Statue of Liberty, “I lift my lamp beside the golden door.” The fundamental difference, say some descendants of those immigrants, is that their families came here legally, sometimes waiting offshore to be inspected for disease, withstanding long lines and interrogation at Ellis Island, N.Y.; Philadelphia, Penn.; or Galveston, Texas; then studying, taking tests, and waiting for months or years for an oath-swearing ceremony. “We did it the right way, the legal way, and earned our citizenship,” they say.

Sutton County Judge Carla Garner says a proposed border fence is not always on the lips of her circle of friends and associates in Sonora, but what she has heard—and personally believes—is that such a measure would be both ineffective and very expensive. (LIVE! photo/Bill Sontag) (click image to enlarge)	Jennifer Esparza, Main Street Sonora administrative assistant, believes she and her family would breathe more easily knowing that a border wall might afford more protection from illegal entries of drug runners, terrorists and other threats. (LIVE! photo/Bill Sontag) (click image to enlarge)
Del Rio Mayor Efrain Valdez, coordinator of opposition to a border wall within the Texas Coalition of Border Mayors, is relieved that fence mileage proposed on either side of the Del Rio International Bridge is modest. Still, Valdez remains skeptical of Washington projections that no further border fence development is in the offing. (LIVE! photo/Bill Sontag) (click image to enlarge)	Maverick County Judge “Pepe” Aranda has lived in both Del Rio and Eagle Pass, where he was mayor before running for judge. Aranda is a staunch opponent of border walls and fences, believing they symbolize America’s failure to create and implement meaningful immigration reform. (LIVE! photo/Bill Sontag) (click image to enlarge)

 

“I’m definitely for the wall wherever they can build it, particularly around cities, I guess,” said Blocklinger. “Now, anything—the fence or whatever we can build to stop them—is something I’m in favor of. Yes, I know they’re building tunnels and finding other ways of coming in, but we still have to use everything we can to stop them.”

Blocklinger’s distinguished 30-year career with the Border Patrol includes historical perspectives on the ambivalence that has muddied illegal immigration issues. After service in the U.S. Navy during World War II, including loss of his ship and subsequent rescue efforts during the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Blocklinger went to work for the Border Patrol in 1948. His first assignment was on the famed 825,000-acre King Ranch, near Brownsville. “They told us it was OK to be on the ranch, and to pick up illegals that were traveling through, but we could not touch the ones that were working for them on the ranch. So that was our agreement.

“When I left the service in 1977, we were catching, we thought, maybe a third of the illegals coming in. And we figured then that there were about 20 million already in the country, and still coming in at about a million a year. Then, when President Reagan gave them amnesty, those that got it were able to bring in their brothers and sisters, too. So, for the next several years, the only immigrants we were taking into this country were from South America, Central America, and Mexico.”

But agency affiliation is no guarantee of solidarity on the issue. “I think building a wall anywhere, anytime is a complete waste of money,” said U.S. Border Patrol Law Enforcement Specialist James Runyon, Sunday (Jan. 20). Runyon retired from the Border Patrol after a 23-year career in the field, culminating in his position in Del Rio as patrol-agent-in-charge at the Del Rio Station. He re-joined the agency a few years later and now teaches at the Border Patrol Academy at Artesia, N.M.

“Having lived in El Paso, where they built a wall for 2.5 miles right there in downtown, you could see that it didn’t work,” Runyon said. “Never has, never will. They built it in 1979 or 1980, and it’s all chain link and expanded metal. They call it the ‘Tortilla Curtain.’ It’s still there and it looks like crap, and it never slowed anything down.” Runyon is correct. The history of the “curtain” is that as soon as a hole was repaired, another—often several—appeared overnight.

He gave an appreciative nod to the efforts of then-El Paso Sector Chief Patrol Agent Silvestre Reyes, now U.S. Rep. Reyes (D-16th Texas congressional district). In 1993, Reyes pulled most agents off the streets of El Paso where they were constantly chasing illegal immigrants who had penetrated or scaled “the curtain.” Reyes created what became known as “Operation Hold the Line,” reassigning agents to the border, a quarter of a mile or less apart, usually within sight of each other. Success of the change was nearly instantaneous. “We need more boots-on-the-ground, not a wall,” said Runyon. “Like those generals over there in Iraq say, that’s what works and it can’t be beat by anything. It’s the same on our border down there.”

In Sonora, Texas, 100 miles north of the border, one still finds marked disparity of positions on border fence proposals. Sutton County Judge Carla Garner told LIVE! Tuesday (Jan. 15) that she hears “water cooler” conversation or coffee shop dialogue about the need for a border wall. “I haven’t heard anybody here that thinks it’s a good idea,” said Garner. “I just don’t think that it’s going to do any good, and it’s going to be very expensive.”

Jennifer Esparza, 25, a 2001 graduate of Angelo State University, San Angelo, is Sonora’s Main Street program administrative assistant. Her views on this issue depart from Garner’s. “I think it’s a wonderful idea to have the wall,” said Esparza. “Growing up on the border, I’d just feel a lot safer knowing that there’s another measure of protection down there.” Esparza’s hometown is Uvalde.

Recent news reports have created a widely publicized image of the wall being crammed down the throats of communities that resist federal mandates to build a border immigration barrier. On Monday (Jan. 14), Eagle Pass Mayor Chad Foster agreed to discuss the situation with LIVE!  Later that same day, U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton, San Antonio filed a lawsuit against the City of Eagle Pass, demanding access to the land where a fence may be built.

“We’ve never denied any federal entity access to city land,” Eagle Pass Mayor Chad Foster said later. “Seems to me Mr. Chertoff [Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff] is getting a little heavy-handed in his old age.” Foster said Congress has often taken a position on immigration, only to have Chertoff go a different direction. In particular, Foster cited recent congressional intent to demand positive identification at ports-of-entry beginning in June 2009, and Chertoff’s announcement that the deadline is Jan. 31 this year. “It appears we have a government within a government, and basically I don’t trust him.

“Chertoff has said that the public that’s against this ‘just needs to grow up.’ That was not a comment that was received well on the Hill,” Foster said. “They’re steamrolling the people, abusing our liberties, and appear to be out of control. It’s time they stopped posturing, because they’re going to hand this problem over to the next administration. The problem is that they don’t care if they do. It’s bureaucracy at its finest.

“In 2005, our City Council passed a resolution against having any kind of wall in the city of Eagle Pass. Border Patrol wanted to implement a plan, with a decorative fence, 1-inch tubing, 10 feet high with a 15-inch roll at the top, remove cane, and put up 15 light towers that would illuminate the whole area. In 2007, Border Patrol agreed to eliminate that fence completely, and I look at the whole thing as a park improvement project. But it still passed on a 3-2 vote, and when I asked the dissenters why they weren’t in favor of it, they told me, ‘I just don’t trust them.’”

Foster expressed appreciation for area Border Patrol representatives who have shown willingness to work with local communities, but said DHS agency heads are too removed from the issues. “Department of Homeland Security says they’ve had 18 town hall meetings down here, and we’ve asked them for dates and locations of those, and they have yet to provide them,” said Foster.

On January 8, DHS submitted a Draft Environmental Assessment for the Del Rio Sector and its Secure Border Initiative, including proposed border fence locations at Del Rio and Eagle Pass. The stretch of fence in Del Rio (about 1.7 miles west of the city’s International Bridge and less than half a mile east of it) identified in the EA pleased Del Rio Mayor Efrain Valdez.

“We got exactly what we wanted,” said Valdez, Tuesday (Jan. 22). “Instead of having a big chain link barrier, we’re going to have a steel tubing fence, for just about 2,000 feet east of the International Bridge and maybe a few miles west. The original plan was for five miles west of our International Bridge, all the way to five miles south of Eagle Pass International Bridge.”

Despite his exuberance for the apparent proposal to limit fence-building to a few miles in each city, Valdez noted the caveat in the document that its publication in no way conveys a final decision from DHS. “I basically don’t trust Chertoff at all. He does things that are different from what he says to us. Behind our backs, he goes and does whatever he wants to do. I will be very concerned if something changes in this [Draft Environmental Assessment] plan. I’ve gotten no indication of any changes, but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t,” said Valdez.

Maverick County Judge Jose “Pepe” Aranda described his distaste for the notion of a border wall or fence. “Personally, I think this is a waste of money,” Aranda said, Tuesday (Jan. 22). “For years the border communities have asked for money, and it hasn’t really come in the form of help we can use. A couple of years ago, we had all these OTMs [“Other Than Mexicans”], illegal immigrants largely from Central and South America] coming in, and they were just being released because we couldn’t afford to deport them and take them back where they came from. But they never showed up for their court dates as they were all told to.

“This fence, wall, or barrier that the government wants to build, is just another reflection of the failed immigration policies of this administration. For example, we were promised more agents and we haven’t gotten them in proportion to the need. Immigration reform has not happened either. It’s been debated in Congress, but no real action has been taken.

“I’ll give you a good example [of needed immigration reform]. My dad does not believe in people coming in here illegally. He immigrated here in 1954, and he did it properly and got his citizenship the right way. It took him a year, and now it takes 10 years. The fact is that people are mostly coming over here just to work, and I would say it’s racist to put up a wall and tell Mexico we don’t want them coming over anymore,” said Aranda.

Still, former Del Rio Sector assistant chief James Blocklinger believes the wall is necessary, and an important piece in the puzzle of solving a highly visible problem. But he’s disappointed it has not become more of a discussion point during debates and campaign rhetoric during the season of primaries. “All this political stuff that’s going on right now, they seldom mention that illegal immigration is a real problem,” Blocklinger said. “But, there are two things that we as a nation must do to settle the whole issue.

“We have got to have a national ID card for everyone, and I don’t know why we don’t have one already. Countries all over the world have that, and when we do, those who are here illegally will just have to leave right away. Second, the other thing is to go after the people that are hiring them [illegal immigrant workers]. But, unfortunately, I don’t think we’ll live long enough to see those two things happen,” Blocklinger said.

A small crowd of about 20 Del Rioans and area residents showed up on the Thursday afternoon of Jan. 24 to join at least that many federal employees and contractors who came to the Del Rio Civic Center to display and discuss plans for border fencing.

The measures, including about 2.2 miles of fence in Del Rio and 1.9 miles in Eagle Pass, were revealed on Jan. 8 in a Draft Environmental Assessment (EA) of tactical infrastructure for the Del Rio Sector of the U.S. Border Patrol. Welcoming the modest crowd was Loren W. Flossman, program manager, Tactical Infrastructure Program, Secure Border Initiative. He was accompanied by a bevy of contract employees who worked on the EA project and U.S. Border Patrol agents.

Flossman’s brief 5 p.m. address informed attendees that “Customs and Border Protection is still in the process of decision making” about the draft. David Guzewich, research fellow for LMI (originally Logistics Management Institute), a Belcamp, Md., DHS consultant, affirmed that a final decision on the Environmental Assessment may be issued in early March.

At the EA meeting in Del Rio, Del Rio Sector Chief Patrol Agent Randy Hill said that another EA will likely be developed to address additional infrastructure needs between Del Rio and Eagle Pass, developments not included in the document in draft now. He said the new document would include and address surveillance towers, cameras, and sensors, but he declined to give a detailed list of measures that may come under consideration.

Will more fencing be proposed in another EA? “I don’t need a fence out there in remote areas right now,” Hill said. He added that recent amendments to a current appropriations bill offered by U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison yield discretion whether to pursue developments to U.S. Border Patrol sector chiefs, requiring effective consultation with local landowners and public officials as part of the process. Hill did not rule out the possibility of a future need for fencing along the Rio Grande between Eagle Pass and Del Rio.

Friday morning (Jan. 25), Hutchison’s office said that the appropriations legislation caveats require DHS representatives (including U.S. Border Patrol sector chiefs) to consult with local officials and property owners before proposing changes in border security developments. Hutchison wants such conversations to acknowledge the limitations of terrain and the rights of property owners to protect their prerogatives of ownership and privacy.