Republican building support in Congress to seal off entire border with Mexico

A senior US Republican is pushing for the construction of a 2,000-mile (3,200km) fence along the entire length of the US-Mexico border.
Duncan Hunter, who chairs the Armed Services Committee in the House of Representatives, hopes to win enough support to pass a bill in Congress.

Mr Hunter's plan for the fence envisages a dual-layer construction equipped with electric sensors stretching from the Pacific Ocean across to the Gulf of Mexico. The fence would be surrounded by a new border buffer zone to the north and would be studded with 25 new official points of entry along its route.

Much of the lengthy frontier, though, is barely patrolled and protected only by ditches or barbed wire at best.

He said that the lessons of 11 September 2001 taught Americans that immigration was a national issue that required national solutions.

Earlier this week Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said he aimed to achieve an "extremely high probability of detecting, responding to and interdicting" all illegal immigration.

In the absence of a fence, independent groups such as the Minutemen have begun patrolling stretches of the border hoping to catch illegal migrants.

Opponents of the fence have criticised its likely costs - estimated at about $8 billion (£4.5bn) - and the slim chances of wiping out all illegal immigration.

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I will bet $100 that terrorists either have already or are planning to come into the U.S by illegally crossing the U.S/Mexico border. Over 1 miliion illegal cross into the U.S each year, only 25% are caught and deported. But most of them keep trying to get back in. Sort of like the drunk thats kicked out of the party because they're not welcome but they never have a clue.

This government will never close off the border with Mexico. Too many wealthy corporations rely upon the cheap labor of immigrants, both legal and illegal. Don't forget, the basic tenet of the Republican party is to make the United States a paradise for corporate greed. They'll never let a little thing like the security of the United States stand in the way of profits.
Every so often, one or two Republican congressmen will throw a bone to their most racist and xenophobic constituents by saying things like "Let's put up a big ol' goddam fence" but it's just to keep the drooling far-right wing of the party worked up enough to vote.

There is nothing racist nor xenophobic about wanting ILLEGAL aliens to keep out.

Would you say the same thing if illegal aliens were Australian? You'd have a pretty hard time justifying those comments. It just so happens that a) we share a border with a Latin American country and b) it just so happens that you're going to get more illegals from across a border than across a sea.

You want to immigrate here, do it legally. Otherwise go away.