Securing our nation’s borders is one of Congress’ main priorities. We need to address illegal immigration, drug trafficking, and the violence that happens on our communities—both on the border and everywhere else in America.

These problems, however, will be not be solved by constructing a wall that tears through our public and historical lands, forces our citizens to surrender their property, and reverses all the work and investment the Congress and local community have done to protect the natural environment.

Take for instance the Historic Fort Brown. It served as an integral battleground of the Mexican-American war and troops stationed there fought in the last Civil War battle.

The proposed border wall will put Fort Brown on the Mexican side.

Would we put up a wall to divide the battlefield at Gettysburg?

The Sabal Palm Audubon Center in Brownsville, home to rare birds and endangered wildlife, may also end up on the Mexican side of a planned wall.

It is also disturbing that the government is bullying citizens by not even giving them a fair market value on the lands it intends to seize.

Yet, our communities aren’t even being given the opportunity to truly voice these concerns.

The people along America’s borders are the most impacted by border security policies. We all support border security, but simply ask for smart policies.

The funding for the wall, and the process used to begin its construction, is not smart policy.

By now, we have all heard about the Department of Homeland Security’s decision to waive 36 laws that protect our health, environment, and quality of life with the stroke of a pen.

The National Environmental Policy Act. The Clean Air Act. The Federal Water Pollution Control Act. The Farmland Protection Policy Act. Are these laws, some that have been on the books since 1900, not important enough to consider when we talk about building a border wall?

In 2005, the Republican-controlled Congress granted DHS this power by including it into a bill that provided funding for our brave troops in Iraq/Afghanistan and relief to those suffering in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Is that what our federal government is reduced to? Slipping in provisions granting them overreaching authority into legislation that is aimed to support our troops abroad and our citizens suffering from natural disasters?

This isn’t the way the founders of our Constitution envisioned our government to be.

There are many opinions on the issue of the border wall, and I sincerely believe Congress abdicated some of its responsibilities by giving DHS this blanket waiver authority.

We live in a country ruled by checks and balances, and this decision by DHS will set a dangerous precedent.

I know DHS wants to construct the wall by the end of the year, but we should be more concerned with being good stewards of the taxpayers’ dollars and doing it right not fast.

In neighboring Hidalgo County, DHS is working with the local officials to put together a plan that will fortify the deficient levees and fulfill the wall requirements.

The long-overdo refortification of our region’s levees would prevent the potentially disastrous damage a flood in the Rio Grande Valley could do.

This is the type of coordination that needs to be ongoing with all groups, including those that are concerned about the environment.

I therefore fully support Chairman Grijalva’s Borderlands bill, which remedies this problem and gives DHS the flexibility to decide what approach is best for border security and allow for land managers, local officials and communities to be a part of the border security discussion.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 28th, 2008 at 11:33 am and is filed under Politics, Energy/Environment, Homeland Security .