Standoff Near the Border

Over the past year, leaders of the University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College have responded critically to a proposal by the Department of Homeland Security to build a fence that would split up the campus of the jointly managed institutions in the name of border security.

In recent months, its become increasingly clear just how adamant the leadership is to fight for its position. Expressions of concern have now turned to formal opposition.

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What is being demanded, under threat of legal action, is unimpeded access by military and civilian agencies to a UT System campus and its state and locally financed buildings for an extended period of time for purposes of determining if land and buildings will be condemned and seized, Garcia wrote in her letter to alumni. I believe this is sufficient cause for serious concern.

Garcia, who did not wish to comment for the story, reiterated in the letter that a Homeland Security plan to build an 18-foot fence on top of a levee north of its campus is unacceptable. Doing so would, in essence, place the colleges International Technology, Education and Commerce Campus, which is a mile west of the main campus and is the hub for technology training, on the Mexican side, despite it being on U.S. soil in Brownsville, Texas. Plans to build a fence on top of a levee just south of an athletics field and parking lot also puts an entire golf course on the Mexican side, Garcia said.

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Land grab

Federal suit against Eagle Pass seems to be unjustified intimidation of border fence opponents.

The municipal administrators of the small Texas border town of Eagle Pass were stunned last week to learn federal attorneys had gone to court and secured an order forcing them to surrender 233 acres. The land would be surveyed for a barrier to prevent illegal immigration.

As Eagle Pass Mayor Chad Foster noted, the city had already been working with the border patrol on interdicting illegal aliens and was in the process of granting an easement to allow federal construction of a roadway and security zone on city land. Rather than continuing that amicable relationship, Department of Homeland Security officials chose to file one of the first condemnation suits against landowners resisting use of their property for a border fence against a city that had cooperated with them.

Mayor Foster was not notified of the action until after U.S. District Judge Alia Moses Ludlum had granted the order. The city never had an opportunity to plead its case. It appears that the suit was intended as a warning to a group of Texas municipal and business leaders opposing construction of the billion-dollar barrier.

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Border fence may drive largest American cat to extinction

The Bush Administration's decision to not prepare a recovery plan for the endangered jaguar in its native habitat in Arizona and New Mexico may spell the end for the big cat in the United States, says an environmental group.

The Center for Biological Diversity says the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's decision seeks to circumvent the Endangered Species Act from plans to build thousands of miles of wall on the U.S.-Mexico border without environmental review.

"The wall will short-circuit current efforts by jaguars to recolonize the United States," said the group in a statement. The jaguar once ranged from Monterey Bay, California, to the Appalachian Mountains, and currently occurs in southern Arizona and New Mexico where it is listed as an endangered species.

Border landowners sued by U.S. for fence study access

Nydia Garcia looked over the 80 acres of riverfront farmland that has been in her family for centuries and pointed to where a tall security fence would snake through the middle of her property, a half-mile from the Rio Grande.

"My grandfather farmed this land," Mrs. Garcia said. "As kids, we'd ride horses back here and swim in the river. ... What's going to happen now? Will I need a passport to get into my own back yard?"

Mrs. Garcia and her family are among 71 Texans who just said no to the Homeland Security Department's firmly written request for access to their property along the Rio Grande as a potential site for a proposed border security fence.

This week, the reality of that defiance struck close to home.

Homeland Security on Friday filed lawsuits against the Brownsville Public Utilities Board and 11 Cameron County landowners characterized as being associated with large businesses to gain access to their property, said Cynthia Martinez, spokeswoman for Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid, which is advising landowners. The action follows one earlier this week in which U.S. prosecutors sued the city of Eagle Pass and nine individuals in Arizona to force access to border property.

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'An erosion of democracy'

Texan landowners fight federal government over border fence.

Eloisa Garcia Tamez is a Texan through and through. Back in 1747, the King of Spain granted her ancestors 12,000 acres of land. Through the generations, the parcel shrunk smaller and smaller, but Dr. Tamez still owns three of the original acres in El Calaboz, a tiny outpost on the southernmost tip of Texas, along the border with Mexico.

And now the U.S. government wants build a massive fence right through the middle of it.

Dr. Tamez is one of 135 landowners along the frontier who have received warning letters from the government requesting temporary access to their land for a 1,000-kilometre border fence to counter illegal immigration. Many residents along the border in Texas, where the Rio Grande river forms a natural border, see the fence as an unnecessary intrusion that will cut off their access to water and crops and sever important ties with cities and towns on the Mexican side. In Dr. Tamez's case, it could also fracture the last remnant of her family's legacy.

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