The Pink Flamingo :: Is It Time for Chertoff to Be Stopped?

ONCE AGAIN CONSERVATIVES BETRAY THEIR VALUES
The thing I don’t like about this whole Homeland Security monolithic mess that has been created is the fact that the Director of Homeland Security has been granted almost dictatorial powers, all in the name of security. You take someone like Michael Chertoff who is determined to enforce that disgusting border fence law, and a paranoid Congress, then a bunch of Republicans in the House and Senate who don’t have the integrity to stand up to John Tanton’s racist hysteria and we have the makings of a social and environmental disaster. The problem is most conservatives who are anti-immigration don’t mind this Homeland Security Act – that puts Homeland Security above the law.
I don’t mind while GWB is in office, but once he leaves, I want that blasted law outta here!

Law and order, and protecting the world from terror is one thing, but this is way too much. Someone like Certoff, or anyone for that matter, SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED OR GIVE THE POWER TO OVERRIDE the courts. Can’t you read? Don’t you know what is happening here?

I know conservatives don’t mind that in order to support their version of immigration control they must betray every conservative value in the book. If we were dealing with conservatives battling the Sierra Club who wanted to build a fence around prime real estate in Dallas to save a goldfish, they would be waxing poetic about freedom. If the Feds were to step in and say that 20 downtown blocks of Dallas were to be walled off to save that goldfish, well, we wouldn’t hear the end of it. So, why the heck aren’t they doing the same thing here?

Another funny thing is conservatives are demanding the blasted fence be built in someone else’s yard, not theirs. I think we are dealing with another problem, some sort of bias against the southwest and Mexico. You will NEVER find them demanding a border fence with Canada even though that border leaks like a sieve. Be honest, if this were going to be plowed through your home – literally – with no recourse, you would be screaming bloody murder. BUT – because it is in Texas, it’s perfectly okay to literally GIVE Mexico the Rio Grande.

GIVING THE RIO GRAND TO MEXICO
Yep – Chertoff is willing to hand over much of the irrigation and drinking water for Texas in order to appease out of control anti-immigration blather-skytes. What would you do if this were going to happen up in Niagara, New York?

From the Texas Observer

“…Chertoff is using a tool granted to him by Congress in 2005 as part of the Real ID Act. In Section 102 of that act, Congress offered Homeland Security the power to waive laws conflicting with border militarization security. Congress also stripped the courts of judicial review except for Constitutional claims.

Chertoff decided to use the law in Arizona after a federal judge blocked further construction on the fence. In October, the judge agreed with environmentalists that the government had failed to address environmental concerns involved in building a massive fence through a wildlife refuge. The judge issued an order halting construction. Two weeks later, Chertoff invoked Section 102. Construction immediately resumed. (Question: if Chertoff gets pulled over for, say, speeding, can he skip out of the ticket by waiving traffic laws?)

On November 1, the Sierra Club and Defenders of Wildlife amended their lawsuit against the government to argue that Section 102 “violates the U.S. Constitution’s fundamental Separation of Powers principles by impermissibly delegating legislative authority to a politically-appointed Executive Branch official.” Read the amended complaint here.it should make for an interesting fight, and it’s relevant for us Texans because Homeland Security is turning its attention from other parts of the border to the 70 miles of wall it has slated for the Rio Grande Valley. As an Observer story in September detailed residents on both sides of the border as well as environmentalists and birders are enraged over the fence.

The latest map released by the government shows segments of the wall slicing through critical habitat in Texas. The Sabal Palm Audubon Center in Brownsville will be completely walled off, leaving this rare, species-rich palm grove in a sort-of no-man’s-land. Many Texans probably do not know that the Lower Valley is the most biologically diverse region in the nation. Yet it has a global reputation. I’ve met people from as far away as South Africa who have never set foot in Texas but know about the Valley because of its fame as a birding and wildlife paradise…”

I guess it’s okay if they run that blasted fence through people’s houses, right?

“…Congress has authorized $1.2 billion for 700 miles of fence at the Mexican border to keep out illegal immigrants and drug smugglers. The plans call for about 330 miles of virtual fences—cameras, underground sensors, radar and other technology—and 370 miles of real fences. About 70 miles of real fence are set to be built in the Rio Grande Valley, at the southeastern tip of Texas, by the end of 2008. The Rio Grande has been the international boundary since the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo in 1848 ended the Mexican-American War. But officials say that putting the fence right up against the river could interfere with its flow during a flood and change its course, illegally altering the border. The map obtained by the AP shows seven stretches of proposed fence in the Rio Grande Valley, including one section that could cut through the property of about 35 of Granjeno's nearly 100 houses. City leaders and residents say federal officials have shown them the same map.

Exactly how many Rio Grande Valley residents could lose some or all of their property is unclear. The map does not have a lot of detail, and depicts only one portion of the valley, which has about 2 million people overall. Local residents, many of whom have put "No Border Wall" signs on their cars and in their yards, say they have been assured they will be compensated at fair market value for any property taken by the U.S. government. But that has not given them much comfort. "We want to be safe, but it's just that this is not a good plan," said Cecilia Benavides, whose riverfront land in Roma, about 50 miles upriver from Granjeno, was granted to the family by the Spanish in "It gives Mexico the river and everything that's behind that wall. It doesn't make any sense to me." Michael Friel, a Customs and Border Protection spokesman in Washington, said the maps are preliminary and no final decisions on the route of the fence have been made. But he said the maps reflect the government's judgment of how best to secure the border against intruders.
"Our agency, Customs and Border Protection, has an obligation to secure our nation's border and we take that obligation, or that responsibility, very seriously," Friel said.

The fence would be at least 15 feet high and capable of withstanding a crash of a 10,000-pound vehicle going 40 mph, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Exactly what it would look like has not been decided, but it could consist of concrete-filled steel posts a few inches apart, or perhaps sheet metal with small openings. It would not be continuous, but would instead be broken up in several sections of various length. What will happen to the land between the fence and the river is the biggest question for landowners in border towns like Granjeno, a town of three streets and about 400 people situated in a mostly corn- growing region of the Rio Grande Valley.

J.D. Salinas, the top elected official in Hidalgo County, said he can't get an answer no matter how many times he asks.
"Are we going to lose prime farmland because they are going to build a structure that's not going to work?" Salinas asked. "You're moving the border, basically two miles. You're giving it up to Mexico, and the U.S.-Mexico treaties say you are not supposed to do that."

Local officials also fear the fence could cut off access to drinking water that is pumped from the river and piped in to 35,000 homes in the Rio Grande Valley. They fear that town officials will not be allowed to set foot inside the no-man's-land to repair any pumps that might fail.

Homeland Security documents on a department Web site say that "in some cases, secure gates will be constructed to allow land owners access to their private property near the Rio Grande." But the documents offer few details. "They said there's going to be gates, and I said, `That's wonderful. What kind of gates?'" said Noel Benavides, Cecilia Benavides' husband. The only specific type described, he said, was an electronic gate. "That requires power. What happens when it floods?" Benavides said he asked federal officials. He never got an answer. Granjeno Mayor Alberto Magallan said his small town wants to fight. But with only one business—an agricultural trucking company and bar—and a per capita income of $9,000, it is unlikely they can afford to do anything but sell. Manuel Olivarez Jr., a 63-year-old lumber salesman, said that his daughter's and brother's homes would be spared, but that the fence would run through their backyards. And Olivarez worries the Border Patrol is likely to pass very close to his daughter's house every day….”

Chertoff uses the usual conservative anti- environmental dribble:

“"I have to say to myself, 'Yes, I don't want to disturb the habitat of a lizard, but am I prepared to pay human lives to do that?'" Chertoff said in a phone interview. His comments came a day after a U.S. District Courtjudge temporarily delayed construction of a 1 1/2-mile-long fence the Homeland Security Department is building in an Arizona natural conservation area. The judge ruled Wednesday that the federal government rushed its environmental study, written in three weeks, and did not take a comprehensive look at how that fencing might effect other parts of the border. Defenders of Wildlife and the Sierra Club petitioned for the delay. Chertoff said some 20,000 illegal immigrants crossed the border last year at the San Pedro Riparian Natural Conservation Area in Arizona. Those immigrants left trash, human waste and abandoned vehicles in the area. They also introduce parasites to the area's aquifer brought with them in water bottles filled south of the border, Chertoff said. Also, visitors to border parks face dangers from armed drug traffickers and smugglers.

But Judge Ellen Huvelle rejected a similar argument by Homeland Security Department attorney Gregory Page on Wednesday. Huvelle said the environmental problems and threats to the border have existed for years with no action from the agency. She reminded Page several times that Congress gave the Homeland Security Department authority to waive environmental laws to deal with border security. She also said the agency is not studying the effect erecting the fence on one part of the border has on another part of the border….”