Why is our border so open?

layoutshooter

Veteran Expediter
Retired Expediter
Why are we fooling around with a "civil war" in Libya? Is if for "humanitarian" reasons? Are there no "humanitarian" needs in Mexico? Why is our border still wide open? Why is our government NOT doing there job and protecting our borders from this mess? Are they open for "political" reasons?


13 killed in lake gunbattle in northern Mexico





MEXICO CITY – Mexican marines patrolling a lake along the border with Texas discovered a drug gang camp on an island, provoking a gunbattle that left 13 people dead, the navy said Monday.

Investigators in a different northern state reported finding 11 decapitated bodies and exhumed 22 remains from mass grave sites where they have found 179 dead people since last month.
One marine and 12 suspected gunmen of the Zetas drug cartel were killed in the battle Sunday on Falcon Lake in the northeastern state of Tamaulipas, the navy said in a statement.

The navy said the gunmen opened fire first when the marines discovered the camp, which the gang is believed to have used as a launching point for smuggling marijuana into Texas by speedboat. Marines seized more than 20 guns after the shootout, including several assault rifles.

Falcon Lake, a dammed section of the Rio Grande, is where U.S. citizen David Hartley was presumably chased and gunned down by pirates Sept. 30. His body has not been found and Mexican investigators have reported no leads in the case.

His wife, Tiffany Hartley, told authorities she and her husband were using personal watercraft on Falcon Lake when they were approached by pirates who shot and killed her husband. The couple, who lived in nearby McAllen, Texas, at the time, were returning to Texas after photographing a historic church on the Mexican side of the lake, Hartley said.

Mexican officials called off a search for David Hartley on Oct. 14, but the case remains open.

The search was hampered when authorities received threats, presumably from the Zetas. The Tamaulipas state police commander and chief investigator of the Hartley case, Rolando Flores, was killed while the search was under way, his decapitated head delivered in a suitcase to a local Mexican army post.

Mexican authorities say they don't know whether Flores' killing was related to the Hartley case because he had been in charge of several investigations.

The Zetas are locked in a fierce turf battle with the Gulf cartel that has turned much of Tamaulipas state into a virtual war zone. Last month, security forces discovered more than 40 clandestine graves containing 183 bodies. Many of the victims had apparently been pulled off passenger buses by Zetas gunmen trying to recruit them.

A similar discovery was made last month in the northern state of Durango, another drug cartel battleground. Soldiers unearthed 22 more bodies — among them three women and 14 men — from mass graves in the capital of Durango city over the weekend, bringing the rapidly mounting toll to 179, according to statements Monday from the Durango state attorney general's office.

The Mexican army will continue excavating at a mass grave site Tuesday.

President Felipe Calderon's security spokesman, Alejandro Poire, said Monday that "the finds were a result of a capture made by federal forces."

Poire said investigations into the mass grave sites revealed that the motives of the Durango killings were different than in Tamaulipas, but he did not explain or give any specifics.

Besides mass grave sites, there is public display of drug violence in the vast, mountainous state. The decapitated bodies of 11 men were found Monday in two places in Durango, the state attorney general's office said.

Agents first discovered six decapitated men across from a middle school in the capital, which is also named Durango. Investigators then found five decapitated men on a highway that connects Durango to the Pacific resort of Mazatlan. The heads lay next to the bodies.

The attorney general's office has not identified the bodies or the motives for the killings.
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13 killed in lake gunbattle in northern Mexico - Yahoo! News
 

chefdennis

Veteran Expediter
I heard today that Arizona is getting more donations then the figured they would this early into this:

Arizona looks for donations, inmate labour to build its own fence to secure US-Mexico border

By: Paul Davenport, The Associated Press
Posted: 05/8/2011 4:47 PM | Last Modified: 05/8/2011 5:10 PM
Arizona looks for donations, inmate labour to build its own fence to secure US-Mexico border - Winnipeg Free Press

PHOENIX - Arizona lawmakers want more fence along the border with Mexico — whether the federal government thinks it's necessary or not.

They've got a plan that could get a project started using online donations and prison labour. If they get enough money, all they would have to do is get co-operation from landowners and construction could begin as soon as this year.

Gov. Jan Brewer recently signed a bill that sets the state on a course that begins with launching a website to raise money for the work, said state Sen. Steve Smith, the bill's sponsor.

"We're going to build this site as fast as we can, and promote it, and market the heck out of it," said Smith, a first-term Republican senator.

Arizona — strapped for cash and mired in a budget crisis — is already using public donations to pay for its legal defence of the controversial get-tough illegal immigration law, known as SB1070. The state is appealing a federal judge's ruling blocking key provisions of the law, including a requirement that immigrants get or carry immigration registration papers.

Part of the marketing pitch for donations could include providing certificates declaring that individual contributors "helped build the Arizona wall," Smith said. "I think it's going to be a really, really neat thing."

Construction would start "after we've raised a significant amount of money first" but possibly as soon as later this year, Smith said.

"If the website is up and there is an overwhelming response to what we've done and millions of dollars in this fund, I would see no reason why engineering or initial construction or finalized plans can't be accomplished," he said.

The nearly 2,000-mile (3,200-kilometre) U.S.-Mexico border already has about 650 miles (1,050 kilometres) of fence of one type or another, nearly half of it in Arizona. The state's border is the busiest gateway for both illegal immigrants and marijuana smuggling.

Department of Homeland Security spokesman Matthew Chandler said federal officials declined to comment on the Arizona legislation.

State Corrections Director Charles Ryan said getting inmate labour to help construct border fencing wouldn't be a problem.

Minimum-security prisoners already have been used to clear brush in immigrants' hiding spots near the border and clean up trash and other material dumped by border-crossers, he said.

Work crews of Arizona inmates also have been used to refurbish public buildings, build sidewalks and construct park facilities.

At 50 cents an hour, "we are a relatively inexpensive labour force," Ryan said. "If we have the funding to do it, we're capable of doing it."

Arizona's existing border security fund is being used to pay for legal costs of defending SB1070 in court, though Brewer's 2010 executive order creating the fund allows its money to be used for any "border security purpose." A federal judge has blocked implementation of key parts of SB1070, but Brewer has said she'll take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary.

The fund through Wednesday has received nearly 44,000 donations totalling more than $3.7 million, collected online and through mailed donations since May 2010. Roughly half of the money has been spent, and Brewer spokesman Matthew Benson said the balance is also needed for SB1070-related legal expenses.

Smith and other supporters of the border-fence legislation haven't produced any cost estimates for the state project, saying only that the state should be able to do it far more inexpensively than the federal government.

That still could be put the state's costs in the tens of millions of dollars — or more.

A 2009 report by Congress' Government Accountability Office said costs of federal fencing work to keep out people on foot ranged from $400,000 to $15.1 million per mile (1.6 kilometres), while costs for vehicle barriers ranged from $200,000 to $1.8 million. Costs varied by such things as types of fencing geography, land costs and labour expenses, the report said.

Brewer signed the Arizona fence bill SB1406 on April 28, and it will take effect with most other new state laws on July 20.

It took the bill about 2 1/2 months to land on her desk, easily winning approval on party-line votes during a legislative session dominated by budget-balancing work

During committee hearings and floor debates, Republicans said the state has a legal and moral obligation to take action because the federal government hasn't done enough to secure the border.

"My constituents want this thing fixed and fixed once and for all, and we're going to do it," Republican Sen. Al Melvin said during a February committee hearing. "People should not be dying in the desert."

Democrats questioned the project's feasibility and called it a feel-good distraction from pressing for more comprehensive action on border and immigration issues.

"If we are here to pass symbolic legislation and not really address border security, SB1406 does the job. But people don't benefit from symbolic legislation," Democratic Rep. Catherine Miranda said before the April 18 House vote.

Under the bill, the border fencing work could be done either in conjunction with other border states or by Arizona alone.

Smith said the committee will consider where to build the fence and what kind of fence is needed.

But the eventual choice could be like double- and triple-fence barriers already installed along the border in Yuma County in southwestern Arizona because they appear to block crossings, he said.

Any type of fence would require approval of landowners, but Smith said he expects that to be forthcoming from the state and private land owners, including ranchers who have complained of break-ins and other trouble associated with smugglers and illegal crossings.

Individual ranchers likely will co-operate with the state fencing project, just as they have done with federal officials on placing helipads, watering stations and communications equipment to help officers patrolling the border, an Arizona Cattle Growers Association official said.

However, the 1,100-member association didn't take a position on the fence bill, said Executive Director Patrick Bray.

"We certainly appreciate the efforts put into this legislation, however the funding is a huge question. It's an empty solution because we don't know where the money is going to come from."

Bray added: "We want to stay focused on the overall border security issue. At this point we are looking for a more comprehensive security approach rather than this pieces that might come to fruition."
 

rooster21

Seasoned Expediter
As walking the bathroom in a petro, just heard obama is down at the mexican border.

I agree that are military needs to come back to protect our border and we should help arizona build that wall.

I feel bad for that wife loosing her husband in that fashion.

We need to take back america as it is going to hell and this is one big reason!
 

layoutshooter

Veteran Expediter
Retired Expediter
As walking the bathroom in a petro, just heard obama is down at the mexican border.

I agree that are military needs to come back to protect our border and we should help arizona build that wall.

I feel bad for that wife loosing her husband in that fashion.

We need to take back america as it is going to hell and this is one big reason!

Well, cleaning up the mess on our border, closing it as it should be and taking care of "real" reform will NEVER take place as long as Obama/Biden and most of our congress remain in power. THEY are the problem.
 

rooster21

Seasoned Expediter
Here hear layoutshooter, you are supported and keep firing away!

But we really need to write in our representatives nagging them to do something!

Oh by the way, just got another email from ooida in regards to detention time and now the fmcsa is trying to take that away.
 

layoutshooter

Veteran Expediter
Retired Expediter
Here hear layoutshooter, you are supported and keep firing away!

But we really need to write in our representatives nagging them to do something!

Oh by the way, just got another email from ooida in regards to detention time and now the fmcsa is trying to take that away.


I got that email from OOIDA as well. I will fire off more stuff to my useless congressman but "Dingellberry" will do nothing. 98% of his funding comes from OUTSIDE the State and District. He provides for those who pay his freight.
 
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