Bush backs security fence

[struggle4progress]

Warning of risk to wetlands and Mexican migrants

Jo Tuckman in the Tijuana river estuary
Monday May 23, 2005
The Guardian

<snip> The area is an internationally recognised wetlands reserve which environmentalists say is home to 370 species of birds, several of them endangered. They also say that this unusually well-preserved habitat could disappear if the US department of homeland security is allowed to build an impenetrable triple-fence security zone along the side of the reserve.

The environmentalists have come together with human rights groups from both sides of the border who argue that the security zone will do little more than rechannel existing migrant flows and increase the risks migrants face. But they are fighting what seems to be a losing battle against the Bush administration's determination to seal the southern frontier.

Last year protesters received a boost when the California Coastal Commission blocked the $58m (£32m) project on the grounds that the impact on the 2,500-acre wetlands reserve was not justifiable. But last week George Bush signed legislation that gives a green light to the security zone, permits or no permits.

"The fence project as designed could destroy the reserve that we have worked so hard to preserve over decades," says Mike McCoy, a veteran conservationist. "It is absolutely asinine to do this." <snip>

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1489899,00.html