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Border Security

This Page: https://https://copswiki.org/Common/BorderSecurity

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Background

This topic includes discussion of the border fence, and the larger issue of border security and immigration reform.

Immigration and Naturalization Service

Protects and enforces the laws of naturalization, the process by which a foreign-born person becomes a citizen. The INS (http://www.uscitizenship.info) also tackled illegal entrance into the United States, preventing receipt of benefits such as social security or unemployment by those ineligible to receive them, and investigated, detained, and deported those illegally living in the United States.

The INS encouraged relatively free and open immigration during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and did not question that policy until the late 1830s. Naturalization is the process by which U.S. citizenship is granted to a foreign citizen or national after he or she fulfills the requirements established by Congress in the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).

Immigration Reform

View an Immigration Survey of San Diego County Voters Commissioned by the Immigrant Rights Consortium of San Diego County:

Research of human rights violations along the border:

Summary of articles submitted (Add | All)

Border Fence

See this clickable map of the border fence. -- http://americanpatrol.com/ABP/SURVEYS/BORDER-2009/SAN-DIEGO/HTML-SAN_/Sector.html

We need to work fast on this fence disaster because they are pushing it ahead an egregious assault on the environment. We tried to find out about the project from ALL the elected officials and got nowhere. We found out about the meeting on Jan 17th on about Jan 20th, the one at the convention center. I was told about two dozen people showed up. They also had a meeting in Alpine, but none along the border.

The big disaster about this is that even if they complete the fence, there will still be a ten-mile gap, in the most sensitive areas of Marron valley and the sacred Kuchaama mountain. To close those ten miles will be an unprecedented environmental disaster as the Tijuana river winds back and forth across the border area.

The current proposal is 5.2 miles of new fence, 4.4 miles extending from the fence at Brown Field and 0.8 miles extending the fence from the existing Tecate fence. There is a big gap in the area of Marron Valley Preserve.

Marron Valley Preserve.

The Marron Valley Preserve consists of approximately 2,600 acres owned and maintained by the City of San Diego Water Department. This area has been designated "Cornerstone Lands" under the City of San Diego Multiple Species Conservation Program (MSCP) Subarea Plan because it is considered an essential building block for creating a viable habitat preserve system. Much of the area is currently leased by the city for cattle grazing, however as part of its designation as Cornerstone Lands, the city would place conservation easements on portions of the preserve, which then can be used as a Conservation Land Bank and sold as mitigation credits to public entities, public utility/service providers, and private property owners doing projects in San Diego County and needing mitigation (City of San Diego 1997). A small portion of the proposed primary pedestrian fence, Pack Trail access road, and one staging area would be within the Marron Valley Preserve near Boundary Monument 250. An additional staging area to be used during upgrades of Monument 250 Road would also be located within the Preserve, east of Mine Canyon Wash.

  • Satellite Image of Marron Valley showing border. Note that the river crosses the border at least four times and runs exactly along the border line for perhaps a quarter of a mile.
MarronValley.jpg

There does not seem to be any discussion of changing Marron Valley Road, however there was suppose to be the document "Monument 250 Road Improvement Project" on this page: http://ecso.swf.usace.army.mil/Pages/Publicreview.cfm

Key Problem (submitted by RaymondLutz to the NEPA process)

This proposed fence would be difficult to cross and will resist the impact of a vehicle. However, the extent of the fence does not fully span the border. There is a gap in the fence between the western portion (4.4 miles) and the eastern portion (0.8 miles) of approximately ten miles. This gap includes some of the most sensitive portions of the border region, including the Marron Valley Preserve and the Tijuana River. There was no analysis of the displacement of the border traffic into the gap, and putting severe pressure on the preserve areas.

The DRAFT ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT mentioned that "during the 2006 calendar year, the Brown Field Station was responsible for 46,213 apprehensions, or 34 percent of all apprehensions within the USBP San Diego Sector." However, the document did not state how many of these apprehensions were of individuals who had crossed the border in the region of the proposed fence extension, nor did it describe the distribution of crossing traffic volume.

Questions: 1. What is the distribution of border traffic along the border at this time?

  1. The reports says 46,213 apprehensions occurred in 2006 by the Brown Field station. Approximately how many individuals are not apprehended? A detailed map showing the crossing areas and approximate volume of traffic along the border (to defined question 1, above) is suggested, along with the approximate volume of individuals who evade apprehension (question 2).
  2. Approximately how many individuals are crossing the existing fence, either by climbing it, using ladders, or digging tunnels? Where?
  3. Extensive tunnels under the border in Otay and Tecate were discovered recently. Is there any proposed changes to reduce the prevalence of these tunnels?
  4. Since there is a large gap of approximately 10 miles between the two fence extensions, what portion of the current undocumented traffic will simply move east (from the A-1 section) and move west (from the A-2 section) and enter in the Marron Valley Preserve and onto the Mt. Kuchama area, considered sacred by local tribes?
  5. What is the environmental impact of moving the cross-border traffic into this preserve area, an area used as a Conservation Land Bank and designated “Cornerstone Lands” under the City of San Diego Multiple Species Conservation Program (MSCP) Subarea Plan because it is considered an essential building block for creating a viable habitat preserve system?
  6. Very little consideration was given to detection technologies that could be distributed along the border and detect crossers without the extensive impact to the environment of border fence construction and avoiding the negative impact of moving the traffic further east. Would this be a viable alternative?
  7. In photos of construction of other portions of the fence (esp. http://ecso.swf.usace.army.mil/photos/Image14.jpg), construction included a massive amount of grading that appeared to be unnecessary. Will the amount grading and road widening planned for the proposed fence be similar in impact as that shown in those photos? What is the impact on Marron Valley Road? Will this road be used for access to the area, both for construction and to apprehend border-crossers who must now walk around the end of the fence into this area?
  8. Rumors have circulated that Marron Valley Road will be widened significantly. Is this true? What is the exact impact to this area and the residential community of Dulzura/Jamul?

Related Info

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Metadata
ProjectName Border Security
ProjectDescription This topic includes discussion of the border fence, and the larger issue of border security and immigration reform.
ProjectFounder RaymondLutz
ProjectCurator RaymondLutz
ProjectType IssueOversight
ProjectStatus Inactive
Attachments
NameSizeDate
MarronValley.jpg 491780 26 Jun 2014
Border_Action_abuse_documentation_2007.pdf 817233 26 Jun 2014
StopTheBorderFence-Leaflet-3up.pdf 115118 26 Jun 2014
StopTheBorderFencePetition.odt 13021 26 Jun 2014