Bush Approves 700-Mile ‘Concept Fence’ at Border
(2006-10-26) -- President George Bush today signed into law a bill that authorizes a 700-mile long “concept fence” on the U.S.-Mexico border.
The concept fence, a project approved but not funded by Congress, is similar to a concept car, administration officials said. ...
Border security symbolism
Michelle Malkin
President Bush signed the Secure Fence Act this morning. (Video here.) Efforts to water it down, such as it is, are still underway:
Sens. John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Hutchison, both Texas Republicans, had wanted to amend the fence bill to give local governments more say about where fencing is erected. They lost that battle, but Republican leaders assured them the Homeland Security Department would have flexibility to choose other options instead of fencing, if needed.
Meanwhile, Border Patrol agents are getting thrown in jail for doing the job no one else wants to do except at election time--enforcing the borders for real. Debra Saunders reports:
Someone ought to tell the Bush administration that prisons are for criminals, not law-enforcement personnel trying to do their jobs. On Thursday, a federal judge in Texas sentenced two former Border Patrol agents to 11 and 12 years in prison because they shot at a drug smuggler who was evading arrest.
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WorldNetDaily's Les Kinsolving asked White House spokesman Tony Snow about the case. It is not a compassionate response:
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I'd expect that kind of answer and condescension from Mike McCurry or Dee Dee Myers. Seems like the White House is trying to court every part of the conservative base except the vast majority who support full, unapologetic enforcement of our border and immigration laws.
Are we serious about border security for its own sake--not just as a campaign ploy (my mailbox is getting clogged with GOP press releases about the fence from congressional reps who have never e-mailed me a word before about immigration)? Here's more evidence to the contrary. ...
Signed In Broad Daylight
Ed Morrissey
George Bush signed the Secure Fence Act, as promised, in a public ceremony at the White House yesterday morning. He cast his signature as one step of progress on the journey towards immigration reform: ...
... Perhaps immigration hard-liners can feel somewhat vindicated at this point. Twenty years after an amnesty that utterly failed to fix the problem, the border problem finally has received some attention. And while Bush still wants to address the issue of the millions of illegal immigrants already in the country, at least some progress has been made towards securing the border to solve the most pressing problem first: the illegal entry into the US.
