The Department of Homeland Security secretary, Michael Chertoff, announced on April Fool's Day that the Bush administration would waive all federal environmental and land management laws that open-border activists had vowed to use to hold up construction of the congressionally mandated fence on the border with Mexico. Seemingly good news – however there is more to the story.
Congress passed the Secure Fence Act two years ago requiring nearly 800 miles of double fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border, and Congress further appropriated (on a bi-partisan vote) the money to build it. Benchmarks in the Act required 670 miles of the double fence to be completed by now. To date, less than 10 miles of the double fence have been built.
Another smuggler's tunnel was discovered this week at the San Diego-Tijuana border, the busiest legal and illegal border crossing in the world. A dozen such tunnels have been discovered since 2000 along this particular stretch of the border. The double fence (thank you Duncan Hunter) is in place there and is working to deter illegal border crossers.
These tunnels are witness to the effectiveness of the fence – they are elaborate and expensive smuggler construction projects. The smugglers have to build these tunnels because of the above ground fence, lights, sensors and increased border patrol agents being used to bring this particular stretch of border under control.
How elaborate are these tunnels? A tunnel discovered last year near the border crossing on Otay Mesa ran a half mile, 60 to 80 feet down, and was constructed using mining technology complete with lights, concrete floor, air conditioning and a railroad track!No one really knows how many tunnels there are under this or any other part of the border. The tunnels that have been detected are the result of old fashioned police surveillance or informants – little did we know there was a better way.
Recently, the State Department announced that the U.S. (that means you) would allocate $23 million dollars (your money) to Egypt to help build a border fence between Egypt and Gaza!  Wait, there's more … the announcement committed the assistance of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers with new tunnel detecting technology to help stop Palestinian smugglers from crossing underneath that border.
Press accounts described new tunnel detection technology deployed on a UAV, or Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, which in an August 2006 test successfully detected a known smuggler's tunnel under the border near Douglas, Ariz. This technology has not been seen since then on the U.S.-Mexico border, but apparently will now be deployed to the Egypt-Gaza border.
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<!--[endif]-->The Egypt-Gaza border issue is vitally important to Israel. Last year, Hamas led breakthroughs in the makeshift border separating Gaza from Egypt. Streams of Palestinians were seen on international news accounts desperately getting food, water and other goods in Egypt that they claimed Israel's military prevented them from getting legally in Gaza.
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<!--[endif]-->The real story was that Hamas staged the border breaks to cover for an arms buildup accomplished by smuggling through and under the Gaza border. American military sources estimate that 10 to 20 tunnels perforate the ground under this border. The presence of more sophisticated rockets furnished to Hamas by Iran, now raining down on adjacent Israeli towns, testifies to the success of this border-smuggling operation.
Egypt says Israeli fears are overblown and that it has the border at Gaza under control.  Congress, however, conditioned military aid to Egypt this year on a finding by the secretary of state that Egypt has taken concrete steps to "detect and destroy the smuggling network and tunnels that lead from Egypt to Gaza." Congress backed this up by withholding $100 million (out of $1.3 billion) of that military assistance until the secretary so certifies.
Egypt countered that it did not have the capability to "detect" tunnels under the border with Gaza whereupon the Bush administration committed $23 million of the military assistance money to deploy cutting-edge tunnel detection technology, only recently developed by the U.S. military, to the Gaza border.
So … desperate taxpayers, the good news is that the Bush administration is finally exhibiting the will to control a border and developing the technology to "detect and destroy" border smuggling tunnels. The bad news is – it's on the Egypt-Gaza border and not also along our own open border with Mexico.
Roger Hedgecock is the long-time, top-rated radio talk host in San Diego, Calif., on KOGO and, more recently, a nationally syndicated Saturday radio host heard in 47 markets and on XM satellite. He is author of "The 2008 Conservative Voters Field Guide," a series of books on 2008 election issues."#1-Immigration" and "#2-The War" are available at the WND book shop.  Learn more about Roger at his Web site or by e-mailing him.
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