Compromise Reached on Border Barrier

Feb. 9, 2008— -- Officials from the Department of Homeland Security and from Hidalgo County, Texas, settled a year-long dispute Friday when they reached a compromise plan for the border barrier the federal government wants to build between Texas and Mexico to block immigration and drug smuggling.

The agreement called for the construction of a combination of 18-foot levees and walls along a 22-mile stretch of the Rio Grande — a section of a planned 370-mile barrier to stretch from Brownsville, Texas, to California. The Department of Homeland Security has pledged to build the barrier the end of the year.

The original plan for the barrier tracked a fence through towns like Granjeno, as far as two miles inland from the river, causing an uproar among local officials and residents whose crops would be blocked from water access or whose homes would be separated from their land.

The government would have had to buy a strip of land at least 150 feet from the edge of the levee, and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff had filed lawsuits against 71 Texans who refused to have their land surveyed by the Army Corps of Engineers.

One of these Texans was 74-year-old Daniel Garza, who said the Homeland Security plan was taking away everything he'd ever worked for.

"I'm losing everything, everything that I have — my physical, my mind, everything … my house, my trees," he said. "All those trees that you see there, that's my work when I was strong and healthy."

The new levee compromise will simultaneously provide border security and flood control, and it will do that without encroaching on land that has been in families for generations, local and federal officials said.

The basic levee barrier was the brainchild of the administrators of Hidalgo County and Cameron County, who sketched their idea on a napkin while sitting in the back of a Chevy Suburban. They brought the idea to Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and eventually made their way to the Department of Homeland Security in Washington.

Hidalgo County has begun work on the levee barrier and will contribute about $45 million to supplement the federal government contribution of $66 million.

Still, more than 1,000 illegal immigrants cross the border every day, and many people who live in the area are skeptical that any type of barrier will stop them.

"There's a demand for illegal alien labor in the United States and until that is addressed the illegal aliens will keep coming in," said Reinaldo Anzaldua, whose family was granted his land in Granjeno by the King of Spain in 1767, and who has had a career with U.S. Customs.

Mike Scioli of the U.S. Border Patrol agrees that the barrier would not be impenetrable, but he says it still will serve a purpose.

"We know a wall is not going to stop them," Scioli said. "What we're looking at with a fence or a wall is we're looking to slow them down or deter them."

Still, the agreement has been praised by Texas officials and lawmakers for enhancing national security without breaking the economic and social ties between Mexican and U.S. border towns.

While a compromise over these 22 miles has been reached, there are still 348 miles left to be discussed. Eagle Pass, which is about 200 miles west of Granjeno, faces similar land-seizure orders to lay a wall through the city.

Chertoff said the levee compromise provides a model that will be workable for other towns and the entire wall must be completed by the end of the year.