Michael Chertoff, Secretary of Homeland Security announced on Monday that his department will invoke some extraordinary powers granted by the U. S. Congress in the legislation authorizing and mandating the construction of a fence along the border between the United States and Los Estados Unidos Mexicanos. It appears that Chertoff will waive enforcement for about 36 different laws, regulations, and some international treaties, which may be unconstitutional.
This project, satirically termed "The Great Wall of Bush," is one of those dumb ideas that can be a proven failure before it even starts. Just like the Great Wall of China and the Maginot Line, the Wall of Bush will fail because the people it is supposed to stop will simply go through the huge gaps and around the ends.
Gaps
It appears as if the project will be about 670 miles of barrier, however the "border's total length is 1,969 miles (3,169 km), according to figures given by the International Boundary and Water Commission," as noted in Wikipedia, which is almost 3 times as much gap as fence. And the project is working out almost exactly as planned, implemented, and evaluated.
Border Patrol officers in San Luis, Arizona, where part of the fence has been constructed, used to face about 200 illegals daily. Now with the fence built, they have nothing to do, which some commenters believe is the actual goal of the fence. By erecting fence in the vicinity of all the major Border Patrol operations, the officers will visibly not have anything to do--then Chertoff will lay them off for lack of work and re-assign them to airport security.
Meanwhile, in Rat-a-tat-tat, Arizona, a few hundred yards past where the San Luis part of the fence ends and some gap begins, the mayor and constable have commented that they see about 197 illegals every day. Folks in Roma, Texas, are concerned that the 70 miles of fence scheduled to be built in the Rio Grande Valley will leave a gap of about 230 miles along the 300 mile border.
Chertoff and Bush administration officials have no problem with this as they point out that the 230 mile gap is in open, rugged, desert terrain that is a natural deterrent. The real Texans from Roma tried to convince the Washington, D.C., fake Texans and fake politicians that the Mexican migrants do not wear loafers or deck shoes and that the land around the gap is identical to where the border jumpers actually live.
On the other side
Juan Jose Luis Raoul el Coyote don Escobar-Lopez said, "Now I will have to buy a boat and carry my customers over the ocean from Rosarito in Baja to Encinitas, California. Caramba, the cost of doing business."
President Felipe De Jesus Calderon of E. U. Mexicanos said the whole concept is "absurd." During a Bush visit to Mexico, Pres. Calderon pointed out that many of his family members have illegally crossed the border and work at farms and restaurants in the USA, or el Nord. Rather than using an interpreter/translator, Bush relied on his own Spanish fluency and decided that Calderon actually said that members of his family own farms in the USA and eat often in restaurants.
Somewhat later, in California, during a seance conducted by Nancy Reagan's personal astrologer, an apparition of deceased President Reagan, now known as Saint Ronnie of Hollywood, hovered over the center of the balanced table and bellowed, "Bush, tear down this fence." Almost simultaneously, in Moscow, Russia, a reporter asked Mikhail Gorbachev about the Great Wall of Bush. Gorbachev replied, "Democracies don't need fences against their neighbors."
