Two news items about the fence

It appears that Congress has failed to fund the border fence construction. They quietly pulled the funding from the appropriations bill.

On November 6th, Chertoff gave the State of Immigration Report and was warning us the problem was coming. He said: “Now I have to be clear, there’s a very important condition that has to be met if we are to live up to the goal at the end of calendar year 2008, and that is, Congress needs to fund the money that the President has requested to get this important work at the border done. If Congress funds that, we will get it done. If Congress doesn’t fund it, obviously that’s going to be a problem.”

He’s no prophet. Congress pulled the same stunt last year.

If we thought Congress was behind the effort to show the American people we could achieve a respectable level of enforcement and promise-keeping, we were obviously wrong.

So, they all give speeches about the fence, then include wording that lets them off the hook when Homeland Security uses the money for something different. And now they have pulled the money from the appropriations bill altogether. What are they thinking?

News item number two from the border is a story from San Diego that the Mexican government is complaining about the use of tear gas by Border Patrol agents. Violence is up at the border and the agents are using the tear gas as a non-violent way to get rid of the rock throwers and taunters who hang around the border.

BP denies using anything in Mexico but freely uses pepper spray and tear gas in the zone between the primary fence and the secondary one.

Sometimes those agents must feel very lonely. Washington isn’t helping out and everyone complains when they try to do their job.