The US Congress has rejected to erect another 300 miles of tall fencing on the Mexico border, as Washington struggles to stop smugglers and illegal immigrants from entering the US soil. Congress scrapped an appropriation bill by the Department of Homeland Security that envisaged equipping another 300 miles of US-Mexico border with fencing.
Lawmakers said the requested funds should be used in alternative ways to boost security, the Associated Press reported Saturday.
By dropping the plan, lawmakers echoed the sentiments expressed by officials and residents along the southwest border who maintained that the additional fencing would be unproductive and inefficient.
Congressmen also refrained from endorsing an amendment to the bill by Senator Jim DeMint which suggested equipping 700 miles of the nearly 2000-mile-border with Mexico with walls, fences and barriers to ward off illegal immigrants and smugglers.
"The DeMint amendment represented an unproductive and inefficient border security strategy," US Rep. Henry Cuellar said in a prepared statement Thursday.
"We need to invest and secure our border and our land ports without being tied down to an amendment that is out of touch with border needs."
The US faces dire conditions in its border with Mexico, as increasing number of immigrants use this border to cross into the country while drug smugglers use the same border to have access to the lucrative US drug market.
The General Accounting Office reported last month that maintaining the border fence would cost $6.5 billion during the next 20 years. That would be on top of the $2.4 billion spent to build it.
RB/MD
Poster Comment:
"We need to invest and secure our border and our land ports without being tied down to an amendment that is out of touch with (Mexico's) border needs."