$4.8 Million Dollars a Mile

The United States government signed contracts to build the border wall in south Texas yesterday, Sept. 22.  DHS negotiated contracts with Clute, MCC, and Keiwit to construct 7.6 miles of barrier for $37 million.  After Congress approved a $400 million appropriations request for the enactment of the Secure Fence Act of 2006, DHS contracts on Monday to spend $4.8 million for land in Los Indios, El Calaboz, La Paloma, and Bluetown, all of which are towns formed by Spanish land grants dating back to the 18th century. (http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/news/construction_90253___article.html/million_contracts.html)

My heart goes out to the families of these border towns who are more afraid of decrepit levees than illegal immigrants.  As the Rio Grande Valley is moved one step closer to having a border wall slice through its communities, one wonders how the United States can justify begininning to spend $400 million on a border wall which is clearly unpopular when our banks are declaring bankruptcy, millions are foreclosing, the War drags on, and the dollar falls in relation to oil prices.  I pray these actions and these contracts are forestalled long enough for a new administration to realize the lack of logic in building a border wall while neglecting immigration reform and for the country to finally hear the cries of these border towns in the way.

Border Stories

Clara, Sophia, Ben, and John from the new group Border Stories are doing important work for la frontera. They are humanizing this entire border region one video clip, one interview, one face at a time. Their work could not have come at a better time.

The border region has always been misunderstood. There are some who write it off as a dangerous area, others as a poor region not worth visiting on vacation. Some have deemed it “no-man’s land,” since it is south of the real border checkpoints some 40 miles north. Some look at the border region and see only the line which separates two countries, or a river which snakes back and forth until finally emptying into the sea. Some hear the Spanish and Spanglish and are threatened by this budding culture shift in parts of America.

Few look at the border region, either in Las Cruces, NM, and Del Rio, TX, or Brownsville, and see the people whose lives are planted here. The border is shrimp fisherman, factory workers, offshore oil-rig engineers, carpenters, educators. The border is families, bi-lingual tongues, bi-national histories, and bi-cultural futures. The border is a family who cannot leave the la frontera because old Abuela cannot legally cross and they would never dream of leaving grandma. The border is new immigrants, old land-grant families. The border holds the future of the United States.

Please visit http://www.borderstories.org/ to witness these stories for yourself.