WASHINGTON — Landowners and political leaders intensified their opposition to a controversial border fence Wednesday after the Justice Department forced the border city of Eagle Pass, Texas, to relinquish 233 acres of land in a prelude to constructing the barrier.
Eagle Pass Mayor Chad Foster assailed the Bush administration's actions as "sneaky underhanded measures" as he responded to a district court order forcing the city to temporarily turn over the land. The Justice Department sought the property to allow government surveyors to begin assessing sites for construction of the fence.
"We haven't figured out what we did to make the big guy mad," Foster said.
A U.S. district judge in Del Rio, Texas, ruled in favor of the Bush administration as the Department of Homeland Security began pressing ahead with more than 100 lawsuits to begin seizing property from holdout landowners in Texas, Arizona and California in its efforts to construct hundreds of miles of fencing by the end of the year.
DHS spokeswoman Laura Keehner stressed that the lawsuits are designed to give the government temporary access to the land for surveying and site assessment in preparation for construction. At least some of the property, she said, may not wind up as a site for the fence.
"This is just the first step," she said. "There are certain locations where we need to access and survey the land in order to determine where the fence should be built and if so what type."
The DHS is under a congressional mandate to have 670 miles of fencing in place by the end of the year to toughen security on the porous southwestern border. The plan calls for roughly 400 miles of new fencing that will be added to existing barriers.
After months of discussions with municipal officials and protesting landowners, the DHS toughened its stance in December by announcing that it planned to move forward with condemnation proceedings to gain access to the property. The Justice Department suit handled by District Judge Alia Moses Ludlum marked the start of that process.
Foster said Eagle Pass officials were stunned by the development and had no advance notice of the Justice Department intentions. City officials, he said, had been working amicably with the Border Patrol, a branch of the DHS, to help improve enforcement against illegal immigrants.
"We don't know why we got sued," Foster said. He and leaders from other Texas border cities discussed their options in a teleconference but have no plans to file a countersuit, he said. The municipal leaders, he said, hope to meet with Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff later this month.
The leader of CASA, a coalition of border area residents and property owners, said the lawsuit likely would prompt the group to step up its opposition to the fence.
"It's outrageous," said Elizabeth Garcia of Brownsville, Texas. "They're taking away from the people their basic rights."

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Considering the amount of money it costs us to house and feed their criminals, and welfare recipients, I think the USA should confiscate the land on the Mexican side..
Actually, we should just take about a 1/2 mile deep into mexico, all the way across.

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We all can't be as perfect as some think they are.

BUT WHAT WOULD YOU DO WITH ALL THE HOOKERS AND DONKEY SHOWS? THAT MAKES UP ABOUT 50% OF THE POPULATION ALONG THE MEXICAN SIDE OF THE BORDER.

Tax em....................

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We all can't be as perfect as some think they are.

I still think this is our best defense !

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Proud Supporter Of: St. Jude Children's Research Hospital

Amazing that the press and Libs don't want to
admit that Bush is even building a fence until someone
sues the Federal government over it.....
Wait till Dems get the Whitehouse with congress,
they're going to tere down that fence and hand Licenses
to the illegals as they walk in...

but in all honesty Vet what difference will it make ?
neither party will do a damn thing about it anyway. some of them will get up there and talk tough but thats about all they'll do. we had Republican control for about 7 years and what did they do ?
and don't expect anything from the Democrats either. even if we had a President that would do something congress would tie his hands and nothing would get done.

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Proud Supporter Of: St. Jude Children's Research Hospital

What did they do? They started building a fence. Which is the
toughest thing that has ever been done to illegal aliens.
Up until now they could just walk over the border like it did not
exist. Now even the slowest Mexican can tell he is breaking the law
when he has to climb the fence. You think its nothing but its like the
difference between you leaving your front door wide open at night
or locking it. There are a lot less people that are willing to break in.

Put Obama or Clinton in there and you can forget border security.
All they want is those mexican's votes.

Yeah, now it hard to get that ladder over the fence, and the shovel to dig in the soil. orwalk around, cut a hole in it, or just go through the check points with a fake id.

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We all can't be as perfect as some think they are.

Contrast that with poor mexicans that previously walked up with
no ladder, no car to take the ladder, or no fake ID and you
have cut down the problem by more than half, which is
many times what any previous president has done.
A Democrat would have Vetoed the Fence for being
too tough on the poor Mexicans.....