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At Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport,
security resides in a lot more than confiscating gels,
liquids and pointy objects. - This article, written from Linn’s perspective, is the second in a series based on Linn’s February trip to Israel as part of the Ultimate Counter Terrorism Mission.
- HSToday’s Anthony Kimery gets a first-hand look at Israel’s hundreds of miles of fencing
DHS, meanwhile, is paying $20 million for successful completion of just its prototype Project 28 virtual fence, and an additional $64 million to develop a "common operating picture" software system for Border Patrol agents in vehicles and command centers.
In addition to the $1.2 billion dedicated for the Secure Border Initiative, or SBInet, which encompasses Project 28 and all other related border security activities, DHS has been given another $2.7 billion in emergency funds to spend on border security and other priorities, much of which will be spent on fencing, DHS told HSToday.
When it’s all said and done, the US will likely end up spending a heck of a lot more for its border barrier than the Israelis have spent for a few hundred miles less.
And an October, 2007 GAO audit warned that “the additional cost of commercial labor and potential unforeseen increases in contract costs suggest future deployment [of SBInet] could be [even] more costly than planned” – typical of federal program cost overruns.
Furthermore, GAO stated, “DHS has not yet reported the estimated life cycle cost for” SBInet, “which is the total cost to the government for a program over its full life, consisting of research and development, operations, maintenance, and disposal costs.
HSToday Senior Washington Correspondent Mickey McCarter reports in the March issue that “in previous expenditure plans, DHS estimated the total cost for completing SBInet deployment in its initial phase along the southwestern border at $7.6 billion from 2007 to 2011. DHS never estimated the complete lifecycle cost of the program, noted Richard Stana, director of Homeland Security and Justice Issues at GAO, although the DHS Office of the Inspector General stated early forecasts as of November 2006 placed the entire cost of the program at up to $30 billion.”
“And the Israelis have managed to do what at what cost?” mused Colin Hanna of the pro-border security fence organization, We Need A Fence. And “they’re quicker than we are, no question,” he told HSToday.
Despite what the Israelis have managed to build, the US government has struggled to implement Project 28 and to erect just 123 miles of vehicle barriers and 165 miles of fencing under SBInet.
Pursuant to the Secure Fence Act of 2006, DHS had been required to secure about one-third of the 2,000-mile border with Mexico with 700 miles of double-layered fencing. But department officials have had to whittle that down to a plan for about 370 miles of pedestrian fencing and 300 miles of vehicle barriers by the end of 2008 because the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2008 “eliminated requirements to build a double fence, permitting DHS to set up a single fence instead,” HSToday’s McCarter reports in the March issue.
The new legislation also struck down parts of the Secure Fence Act “by foregoing a requirement that DHS erect fencing along five specific segments of the southern border.”
California GOP Rep. Duncan Hunter, sponsor of the Secure Fence Act, slammed his colleagues’ decimation of that law, arguing that experiences along the international border in California demonstrated the need for double fencing.
“By eliminating the double-fence requirement, the Democratic Congress is going to make it easier for drug and human smugglers to cross our southern land border,” Hunter declared.
“The success of the San Diego border fence demonstrates the overall effectiveness of the double-layered approach and the importance of extending this infrastructure across our southern land border,” he said.
Personal examination of Israel’s security fence and the statistics on the drop in terrorism since it has been erected would tend to support Hunter’s position with regard to how a similar US barrier would prevent illegal entry into the country.
Kirk Evans, CBP program manager for SBInet, told HSToday’s McCarter that DHS will employ double fencing where appropriate.
Unlike in Israel, in the US politics and politically correct niceties are largely responsible for both the inability to get behind an Israeli-like fence or to erect any more of the fence than has already been constructed. But it’s also fomented the opposition to having any physical barrier at all.
And then there are the civil legal issues that go along with any border separation structures across private land, even though Congress gave DHS the authority to declare eminent domain and make accommodations to private property owners for the purpose of building a southern border security fence.
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