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BISBEE — The federal government is preparing to build a border barrier that will extend from the Huachuca Mountains in the west to Douglas in the east, a Border Patrol spokesman confirmed Monday.
The project will connect existing fencing in and around Douglas and Naco to create a continuous barrier along the approximately 40-mile stretch of border, Border Patrol Tucson Sector Spokesman Jesus “Chuy” Rodriguez told the Herald/Review.
“They are going to build a mixture of drive-through barriers and the type of fencing that exists in Douglas and Nogales,” Rodriguez said.
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The drive-through barriers, which are designed to stop vehicles from barreling across the border at high speeds, will be of a design known as a bollard fence, Rodriguez said. The design features a series of steel tubes filled with concrete and anchored vertically a few inches apart. The fences in Douglas and Nogales are built largely of 14-foot steel panels.
No timetable is yet available for the project, which, according to Rodriguez, will likely be a joint effort between National Guard troops, reservists and private-sector contractors.
Earlier this year, the civilian Minuteman Civil Defense Corps made the area the focal point of its own fence-building effort when it broke ground on a reinforced range fence at the Palominas ranch of Jack and John Ladd. The group later announced that it would build a 14-foot, double-layered Israeli-style barrier at Richard Hodges’ borderfront property in Bisbee Junction.
Al Garza, the national executive director of the Minutemen and a resident of Huachuca City, said his group’s campaign had likely helped to inspire the government to start building more fences.
Even so, he said the Minutemen would continue with their efforts in the area until an effective barrier had in fact been built. And he said they would not call off their nationwide fence-building campaign until the government had walled off the entire 1,950-mile southwest border.
“We’re going to continue with fencing and walls until we know for sure that we are being relieved of the duty,” Garza said. “We do not trust the government. They have made offers, they have made promises, and none have ever come to reality.”
For his part, Hodges said he will still ask the Minutemen to fence off his 0.9 mile of border frontage even if the government constructs its own wall. His primary interest is a fence that will keep his cattle out of the federal-land road that separates his ranch from the border with Mexico, Hodges said.
And while he acknowledged that he did not need an Israeli-style barrier to keep cows out of the road, Hodges said it would still provide an extra line of defense against the drug traffickers who routinely cross his land.
John Ladd, however, said he might reconsider a plan to have the Minutemen build an additional 8 miles of range fence on his family’s ranch.
“If the National Guard goes ahead and secures the actual border, then we don’t need to go to the extent of doing two fences,” he said.
The Minutemen installed 2.5 miles of five-strand, barbed wire fence at the Ladd ranch earlier this summer.
Work on Hodges’ fence is expected to begin any day, although Hodges said the contractor hired to build the fence is still awaiting a deposit from the Minutemen.
A spokeswoman for Citizens for Border Solutions, a local activist group that advocates legal entry for immigrant workers and opposes the construction of border walls, said she was saddened to hear of the government’s plan.
“As long as there are jobs for them in the U.S. and none in Mexico, walls will not keep out the migrants,” Cecile Lumer said. “Walls only make crossing more difficult, cause hardship and even death.”
Lumer recalled a quote from Gov. Janet Napolitano, who once told reporters, “You show me a 50-foot wall and I’ll show you a 51-foot ladder at the border.”
The Douglas-Naco-Huachucas corridor has seen a steady decline in Border Patrol apprehensions since the agency began pouring manpower and technology into the area a year ago. Since Oct. 1, the number of illegal border-crossers arrested in the area is down 47 percent from fiscal year 2006 to 75,120.
Meanwhile, some corridors to the east and west have seen either unchanged numbers or increased apprehensions.
Herald/Review reporter Jonathan Clark can be reached at 515-4693 or by e-mail at jonathan.clark@bisbeereview.net.
Ezai I. Martinez wrote on Jun 24, 2009 7:58 PM: