Chertoff: Border Fence Is Good For The Environment

AP:

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff on Monday defended the construction of a fence along the southwest border, saying it's actually better for the environment than what happens when people illegally cross the U.S.-Mexico line.

"Illegal migrants really degrade the environment. I've seen pictures of human waste, garbage, discarded bottles and other human artifact in pristine areas," Chertoff said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "And believe me, that is the worst thing you can do to the environment."

Read the whole story: AP

Comments

[ChiGuy]

A Bush shill talking about environmental damage????

Chertoff, you're a joke.

[CaptainVideo]

Good fences make good neighbors.

[white mende man]

Michael Chertoff here is a great sound advice for you on the environment, put a cork in it (both ends).

[3443649]

A Fence? For What? Don't That Skeleton with a thin skin covering know, those dudes from below the border are world renoun when it comes to tunnel digging. A fence is nothing more than another Pork Barrel Farce for the benifit Chertoff maybe?

[Birdman]

Yes they have been known to make quite a few tunnels who cares about some fence. the Berlin wall did not keep things to seperated in Berlin either and there were armed guards to shoot anyone in the no-mans land and still they had people get across. A fence will do nothing with tunnels under it.

[realitydose]

My great grandfather came here illegally, just because he wasn't brown, he was accepted and integrated. Hypocritical to deny citizenship to mexicans, who are the true mechanics of our economy.

[OneFish]

Stop it already!!! The volume of legal immigration from Mexico is still a greater number of people than the illegal. We haven't shut our doors to immigrants, especially those from Mexico. Just stop the illegal immigration. Nobody is entitled to break our laws and then be forgiven.

Let's multitask people!

A fence is a start
Jailing employers would help
Confiscation of assets if you're here illegally
Deportation

AND...No more damned multilingual government publications - learn English or languish in luxurious isolation.

[sandiegoconservative]

OneFish- I largely agree with your post save for legal immigration being a greater number than illegal. I think you need to live down here in the SouthWest and you might have a change of mind. Illegals have overrun more than a few cities in San Diego county.

[TJTelecaster]

What fence they've hardly built any of it anyway..

What do you think we got Italians running things these ass-holes can't even build a fucking bridge that will stand 40 years..

I'd have had Walls built with passageways and rail system inside it and gun ports casinos and whore houses for the men manning it..

Is that wrong..?

Who cares..!

Of course I'd have hunted down bin-Laden and killed every goat molester I had to till I got him..

Instead we get this wimp lame liar as a leader..

[43P04T34]

Yeah, building a wall is easier than putting plastic, metal and paper recycling containers out, isn't it?

Chernoff, if anyone is as dumb as you are, then his name is GW Bush.

[43P04T34]

If Chernoff is offended by garbage, bottles & human artifacts in pristine areas he better stay away from the open air landfills that every city and community in the US creates to dispose of human-made mountains of such things (and worse, of course), things which every city and community create every hour of every day.

Have you seen any photos of these, Chernoff?

Here, check this one out.

http://markjberry.blogs.com/way_out_west/garbage-1.jpg

And multiply that times several MILLION, then multiply that by every year.

Dear Boy, you are too easily offended to live on this planet. Why don't you LEAVE?

[sneezeguard]

Well hell, everyone knows that a fence promotes the growth of barnacles and seaweed and even coral, and where there exists barnacles and seaweed and coral, there are tiny fish. And where there are tiny fish, there are larger fish that come to feed on the smaller fish. And those larger fish get eaten by bigger fish, on up to sharks. And who doesn't like sharks? Sharks are good for the environment because they encourage capitalist shark hunting, and commercial TV programming about the same, and they also fill the airwaves during most Augusts when the news be slow.

So yes, a fence helps all. A rising tide, and all that.

Say what?
The fence is above ground?
Hmmm....

[TS]

Aside from the fact that there are certainly better ways to deal with illegal immigration, and that I believe those in South and Central America already have a bit of technology known as the "ladder," there are legitimate environmental issues here. Not surprisingly, Chertoff has managed to ignore them and focus on litter. Basically, you have a very arrid region in which you're about to cutoff access to the main water source for a lot of terrestrial species. I could be wrong, but I'm fairly certain the average javelina is unlikely to wait in line at a sanctioned border crossing in order to access the river. Unless wildlife corridors of some sort are inorporated into the plan, the potential for ecological disaster is real and should be a matter of concern. The obvious problem is a point of entry for larger quadripeds is also a point of entry for those mammals ofthe biped variety as well. This isn't about maintaining a pretty view of the river at all. Surely, someone had the foresight to do an environmental impact study prior to funding this somewhat archaic and comical attempt at controlling the southern border. Beyond that, there are water rights issues and other concerns al of which make the border fence a uniquely bad idea.

[fact finder]

In Russian Chertoff means " of the devil" Fits huh.

[Gary47]

My goodness, no wonder George likes him.

[factanonverba]

Only in Robert Frost's poetry or in the warped mind of Secretary Chertoff do fences make good neighbors. If this fence gets built, it might slow human migration but it will absolutely impact negatively the migration of animal species (apart from birds, insects and bats) who will have no way of circumventing this monstrous wall. There is only one border in the world that has a fence already (an electrified fence at that). It divides one of the world's oldest natural preserves that of Bialowieski Natural Reserve between Poland and Belrus. What that has done is trap the sole remanence of European bison into two separate herds. Fences are traps for wildlife.

[fact finder]

factanonverba, Fences keep people in as well as out.

[BigBagel]

It won't be built. The corporations want to depress wages.

[forpeace]

*

Since when JerkOff is more worried about environment than adding more people to the 12,000+ Illegals!

........and is he talking about the "Fence" that was built by mistake into Mexico?!

*

[ceasenake]

For me, this is probably the least important problem caused by letting illegal aliens sneak accross the border, but if you need to let the greenies know there is a lot of littering going on so that they will join in calling for better border security, why not.

If he's going to do that he might as well point out that once an illegal alien assumes a lifestyle in the US that is more consumer driven than the one he/she had in Mexico or any other 3rd world country, he/she will have a much larger carbon footprint.

Multiply that by a few (or many) million people, and you're talking about some real damage to the ecology.