U.S. ELECTIONS | Guide to the 2008 Election
28 January 2008
Southwestern Voters Concerned About New Border Security Measures
For Texas 23rd residents, immigration debate is intensely local issue
San Antonio – The national debate over immigration and homeland security has touched a nerve in southwestern Texas, where residents worry about the effect new measures would have on border life.
The biggest controversy concerns a fence the U.S. government intends to build along the Rio Grande River, which divides Texas and Mexico. Under legislation passed in 2007, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) plans to erect nearly 300 kilometers of border fence in Texas by the end of 2008.
But landowners and communities up and down the Texas-Mexico border are objecting.
Opponents say the fence will deny landowners access to their property, cut off livestock from the river and slice through wildlife habitats. Also, they argue, it will offend their Mexican neighbors, and drug smugglers and undocumented immigrants simply will find new ways to sneak across the border.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff recently told reporters that the safety and laws of the United States will not be compromised by the objectors.
“Let me try to explain why this is important,” he said. “You know, people talk about fencing in the context of illegal migrants, but I want to make it clear there's more at stake than that.
“We've got a lot of drugs coming through this country, and a lot of it coming across the Southwest border, whether it's marijuana, methamphetamine, or cocaine ….
“So when local people say, ‘Well, we don't want a fence. You know, we don't think it's necessary,’ I have to say back to them, ‘Well, look. I understand that you may feel it constrains you or it's bad for your relations with your counterparts across the border, but I have to consider the cost to the whole country.’ And if marijuana or methamphetamine coming through a community is on the streets of Chicago or Los Angeles or New York, I've got to consider the cost to those communities of not stemming the flow of drugs.”
BALANCING NATIONAL SECURITY NEEDS WITH INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS
Chertoff’s department has gone to court against Texas border landowners and city officials to force them to open their properties to surveyors who will plot the fence line.
In the first suit, a federal judge has ruled that the border town of Eagle Pass must grant access to about 95 hectares of city-owned property.
A spokeswoman for the anti-fence Texas Border Coalition (TBC), Monica Weisberg-Stewart, said “the people of Texas should be outraged by the sneaky, underhanded methods used by the Department of Homeland Security.”
As the rhetoric over the fence heats up, U.S. citizens also are facing new documentation requirements that might lengthen the already tedious waiting time to cross into Texas from Mexico.
From February, all U.S. citizens aged 19 and older will have to show border control agents some government-issued photo identification, such as a driver’s license, and some proof of citizenship such as a birth certificate or a naturalization document.
Citizens aged 18 and younger will need the citizenship document but not a photo identification.
Anyone of any age can return to the United States by showing only a U.S. passport. Beginning in June 2009, passports will be required at all land crossings from Canada and Mexico.
The passport requirement stems from legislation passed to tighten border security following the September 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States. The requirement to show passports at land crossings originally had been scheduled to take effect June 2008, and the shifting deadline has caused confusion.
Officials in border cities report a rush to obtain birth certificates. The city of Laredo, Texas, says it has been processing some 200 requests for birth certificates each day.
There are complaints about the high cost of the new documents in one of the poorest regions of the country. Adult passports cost $97; a child’s passport costs $82. That would mean an expense of $440 for a family of five to cross the border.
There are plans to develop less expensive alternatives, including a wallet-sized passport card and a driver’s license that includes citizenship data.
The new documentation rules will end decades of easy land border crossings for U.S. citizens, who could re-enter the country with an oral declaration of citizenship.
Proponents of the new policy say the oral declaration is too lax in an era of international terrorism, but the TBC says border security will not be enhanced by requiring citizens to show documents that can be forged.
“These documents are not counterfeit-proof,” says Weisberg-Stewart. She says delays will lengthen for the 4 million vehicles that cross the Texas/Mexico border each year, without improving U.S. homeland security.
The TBC wants to delay further documentation requirements until border crossing cards and enhanced driver’s licenses are ready. But the Customs and Border Protection agency says it will proceed with the program despite its flaws. An agency spokesman says the goal is to raise public awareness that the old, easy way of crossing the border is gone.
Regardless of how and when the new border security program is implemented, it and the broader question of immigration reform is likely to stay on the minds of voters in the Texas 23rd through the November elections and beyond.
