|
Immigration group not happy about future of border fence
By Chad Groening
AgapePress
January 23, 2007
(AgapePress) -- An immigration reform organization is not happy that the new Democratic-controlled Congress may be preparing to backtrack on lawmakers' commitment to fund a 700-mile border fence approved during the last congressional session.
The 109th Congress, controlled by the GOP, had approved construction of the high-tech barrier aimed at reducing the flow of illegal aliens coming across the U.S.-Mexico border. But recently new House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer indicated it is unlikely that funding will be available to allow the project to go forward.
Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), describes the $1.2 billion earmarked for construction of the fence as "the first positive step that Congress had taken in a very long time to control illegal immigration." Now he doubts whether the 110th Congress will even spend that money on the project, let alone approve more funding necessary to complete the fence.
"The money that is in the pipeline -- even if it is spent -- is really only for part of the fence," the FAIR spokesman explains. "This was supposed to an ongoing project that was going to be funded along the way. So if they're not going to carry through and really build the kind of fence that they had promised in the past, it's questionable whether they're going to want to spend that [earmarked] money even up front ...."
And Mehlman feels it is unfortunate that Senate Democrats appear to siding with President Bush that the only way to "solve" the illegal alien problem is to give them all amnesty. He points out that the president never really wanted the fence in the first place -- and that with the new Congress in place, it appears the Senate is not going to follow through with its commitment to the American people to construct the barrier.
Copyright © 2007 AgapePress -- All rights reserved.
Current rating:  4.6 out of 5.0 (146 total votes)
| 
