Border lands in Texas needed to secure border
Houston Chronicle:
One of the reasons Texas is different is that when it came into the union, it got to keep all of the unoccupied land that normally went to the federal government in return for keeping the debt owed by the Republic of Texas. Much of that land turned out to have oil and gas under it which went to the Permanent University Fund and to fund Texas schools. Land along the border was sold to individuals who now must work with the federal government on the secure borders program.
Intent on fortifying the U.S.-Mexico border with a mix of surveillance equipment, personnel and fencing, the federal government this week starts in earnest the delicate process of getting Texas landowners' cooperation — and use of their property.There is much more.
The Department of Homeland Security is deploying an arsenal of ground sensors, lighting, remote video surveillance, observation towers, vehicle barriers, fencing and roadways, all in the name of deterring illegal immigration and improving national security. It's all part of a $7.6 billion strategy, known as the Secure Border Initiative, designed to bring the Southwest border under operational control by 2011.
Fencing, which Congress has mandated along 700 miles of the nearly 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico boundary, has proved by far the most controversial aspect of the plan — particularly in Texas, which has a long history of close economic and social ties with nearby Mexican communities.
Homeland Security officials have sought to blunt that opposition, saying fencing will be installed chiefly in urban, high-traffic locations.
The agency will rely on sensors, radar, unmanned aerial vehicles and a beefed-up Border Patrol elsewhere along a border that is, by turns, rugged mountain, cityscape, arid desert and gentle riverbank.
Still, securing the land rights in Texas will prove far more complicated than in Arizona, where the earliest Secure Border Initiative pilot programs have started. Texas, unlike Arizona, has very little land at the border controlled by the Interior Department, the military or Indian tribes.
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One of the reasons Texas is different is that when it came into the union, it got to keep all of the unoccupied land that normally went to the federal government in return for keeping the debt owed by the Republic of Texas. Much of that land turned out to have oil and gas under it which went to the Permanent University Fund and to fund Texas schools. Land along the border was sold to individuals who now must work with the federal government on the secure borders program.
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