Thursday, May 27, 2010

Fence alone can't plug porous border

Oft-breached barrier doesn't stop politicians from citing it

Image: U.S.-Mexico border fence
A new border fence designed to stop vehicle traffic at the U.S.-Mexico border runs for several miles in San Miguel, Ariz.
Ross D. Franklin / AP

By JACQUES BILLEAUD
 
updated 7:10 p.m. CT, Thurs., May 27, 2010
NOGALES, Ariz. - The fence rises from the rock and hardscrabble of the desert floor, a formidable 15-foot-high curtain of corrugated metal that stretches into the mirage of heat and distance. Newer sections feature 20-foot high steel columns, deeply planted, narrowly spaced, so no human slips between.

The start-and-stop span — 646 miles long — has become a fierce polemic, a bumper sticker, a popular backdrop for campaign commercials during an election year with another sulfurous immigration debate.

The best known TV spot features Republican Arizona Sen. John McCain kicking along a dusty road in this hilly border city, fuming to his companion, the Pinal County sheriff, about drugs and immigrant smugglers and kidnappings. Wearing his Navy baseball cap and squinting into the sun, McCain could be rounding the corner to the gunfight at the OK Corral.


 

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