September 17th – 2009

YUMA –  107 Fahrenheit. San Luis is a city in Yuma county. The Border Patrol is checking my credentials. I have to wait for permission. Time to answer questions: ‘Do I work for a magazine, organization or belong to a group?’…No…No.

To my right stands a steel wall, 25 feet high and reinforced by cement-filled steel piping. The triple-and double-layered fence here in Yuma is the kind of barrier that US lawmakers imagined when the Secure Fence Act ‘HR6061′ was enacted in 2006.

The patrol agents say that since the triple fence was finished in October, there has been a decline in illegal migrant apprehensions in the 120-mile swath of the US-Mexican border known as the Yuma sector. Eight hundred people used to be apprehended trying to cross the border here every day. Now, agents catch 50 people or fewer daily. The 1.5-mile strip of triple fencing that cuts through suburban San Luis is the most impenetrable.

That’s because the three walls are separated here by a 75-yard “no man’s land” – a flat, sandy corridor punctuated by pole-topped lighting, cameras, radio systems, and radar units, where unauthorized migrants can be chased down by border agents.

The triple-layer fencing begins at the San Luis port of entry. One-and-a-half miles east of San Luis, the triple fencing gives way to double fencing for about five miles, after which come another 39 miles of so-called “primary fencing” – a combination of steel mesh and steel panels fitted over bollards, or small metal and cement pillars, that stick up from the ground.

- How much time do you need?

Setting up the camera takes time but my worry is the 119F heat on the film. The emulsion is liquefying. Another headache …. must work fast…I’m drenched in sweat !!! temperature approaching 118 degrees in some places on the Wall in San Luis.

CALEXICO - A new four-mile section of fencing separating this Imperial Valley town from Mexicali is finally near completion. The fence replaces and extends a 40-year-old barricade that was no longer effective in keeping ‘illegal immigrants’ and ‘drug traffickers’ from crossing the U.S.-Mexico border by vehicle or on foot.

The U.S. government allocated $8 million to improve fencing and roads along the California border, with some of the money used to make the Calexico fence sturdier with 20-foot-high sheets of steel. The fence is part of the federal border enforcement plan known as Operation Gatekeeper.It will cost taxpayers $6.5 billion over the next 20 years to maintain the fence along the U.S.-Mexico border, according to a government audit.

The $6.5 billion price tag is in addition to the $2.4 billion that’s been spent to build more than 600 miles of fence segments along the southwest border. As of May 14 – 2009, there have been 3,363 breaches in the fence, which cost about $1,300 each to repair, GAO found.

The borderland can be a complex and fascinating place, the issues now are a lot more complex. How ironic. The ex-Israeli security chief ‘Uza Dayan’ was warning the US against emulating Israeli strategies in securing the Mexican border. Now it appears that ‘Elbit Systems’, an Israeli firm which is building the “Security Wall”, has been awarded a contract, along with Boeing, to build the wall on the Mexican border.

Kollsman Inc., an American-based subsidiary of Elbit, has been selected as a member of the winning consortium by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for the Secure Border Initiative (SBI) to supply technology to identify threats, to deter and prevent crossings, and to apprehend intruders along the US borders with Canada and Mexico.

The Secure Border Initiative is the latest attempt by the United States government to use technology to secure its borders, stop smuggling, and prevent illegal immigration. After September 11, illegal immigration is not just seen as a social problem, but also a national security issue. A unique aspect of this initiative was that Homeland Security gave the bidders total freedom to create new ideas of how to apply both new and old technology to secure the US borders.

JACUMBA - Imagine the scene: Two men stood on opposite sides of a Wall in Jacumba – California, one trying to sell the other eggs. Passing eggs over the border is technically trafficking in contraband.

- ‘No thanks; amigo. I got plenty of eggs,’ said the man, standing in Jacumba, U.S.A.

- ‘Tequila, then,’ said the Mexican man, standing in Jacume, Mexico. ‘How about some tequila? I have that, too.’

Jacumba and Jacume (pronounced and hah-COOM-bah and hah-COO-may) are small unmemorable towns, and nobody paid much attention until the brush fire of world events made it impossible to ignore them. Originally the border that divided the men today was a simple wire fence that cattle routinely trampled. In 1995, the barricade was built to discourage caravans smuggling people and narcotics from driving into the United States from Mexico.

But the government still did not stop the people of Jacume from coming to Jacumba to buy groceries or to work. Old men were permitted to trade in eggs and alcohol. Mexican children were not stopped when coming to school or to the health clinic.

Then came the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, followed by helicopters and lights and motion detectors and extra border agents, and now nobody is allowed to cross into Jacumba, no exceptions. Foreigners who cross into the United States here are arrested. Americans could be fined $5,000 for illegal entry and be jailed. What was a 10-minute walk is now a two-hour drive through Tecate, the closest official border crossing.

Between them was a 20- foot wall. This Wall is going to kill these towns. It’s going to kill everything. Since the Border Patrol started enforcing the law in the name of domestic security, the domestic bliss of Mexican, has gone to pieces. They abandoned there houses in Jacume to live in Jacumba so there children can go to school in the United States.