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| Excess Border Security Or Excess Environmentalism |
| 2011-06-13 |
| Backers of a 100 mile border security zone in the US, with a 150 mile border zone on the southwest border with Mexico, want nearly three dozen federal laws waived for the Border Patrol and Homeland Security in these border zones, including the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Air Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Wilderness Act. Critics of the proposed bill said that it would extend across all of Florida, most of the Northeast and all of Hawaii. In a 2010 report, the Government Accountability Office found that environmental laws had led to restrictions on border enforcement and delays in patrolling and monitoring activities. The GAO said 14 Border Patrol agents in charge reported blocked access to land or slow response times by land agencies in issuing permits. And when such restrictions are in place against the Border Patrol and Homeland Security, illegal aliens and drug smugglers quickly learn to use those crossing areas. The potential for conflict in federal laws was highest in the Border Patrol's Tucson Sector, where there is a high concentration of public lands: three national wildlife refuges, two national monuments, a national conservation area, a national forest and the Tohono O'odham Reservation. It is also the heaviest trafficked border region. Environmentalists have stated that allowing unrestricted use of these protected lands could harm species like the endangered desert pupfish, though the harm caused by federal LEOs is just a fraction of that caused by illegal traffic. However, other critics of these extended buffer zones note that the federal security rules and regulations within these zones both far exceed local and State laws, and affect citizens as much as illegal aliens and drug smugglers. This recently created controversy because even existing border buffer zones would have effectively outlawed many pocket knives in the US, but due a the public outcry, an amendment to the 1958 Switchblade Act was passed to negate this regulation. But there are many more border regulations that would take effect as well, subjecting the people in the border areas to involuntary searches without warrant, identity checks, roadblocks, and other intrusions. |
| Posted by:Anonymoose |
| #3 We can't let the Border Patrol go there but it's OK for illegal aliens and drug smugglers? This country is toast. |
| Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 2011-06-13 15:03 |
| #2 I quite agree. But this is excess vs. excess. Does border security require agents to use border control regulation, that supersede local laws, in Philadelphia or Fort Wayne? This is why the big freakout about their additions to the switchblade law, because there are just 12 States, or so, where at least part of the State would not be under BP law. The fence is the thing we need most for border security. And yes, some buffer zones to catch illegals and smugglers. But we don't need for US citizens to be under the whimsical authority of the border patrol, 50, 100, or 150 miles from the border. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2011-06-13 10:43 |
| #1 Duncan Hunter (R-CA) had to get environmental rules waived to build the successful triple-fence in the San Diego sector. It was clear the "environmentalist" lawsuits were driven more by open-borders activism than real enviro concern |
| Posted by: Frank G 2011-06-13 10:15 |