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From: (b) (6)

To: (b) (6)

Subject: FW: Basham Comments

Date: Friday, March 07, 2008 7:50:14 AM

From Congressional Quarterly:

CQ HOMELAND SECURITY
March 6, 2008 – 8:25 p.m.
Basham: Time to ‘Get Access to These Properties’ to
Build Border Fence
By Rob Margetta, CQ Staff
While Customs and Border Protection remains open to discussion with landowners, it has
reached the point where it will take any action it deems necessary to survey potential sites for
the southern border fence, agency Commissioner Ralph Basham said Thursday.
Appearing before the House Appropriations Homeland Security Subcommittee, Basham
said that the Department of Homeland Security has a congressional mandate to put up 370
miles of fences meant to stop foot traffic and another 300 to stop vehicles. And, he said, after
hundreds of meetings with stakeholders on the border, the department is going to have to
make decisions that some people might not like.
“You can only go so far in discussions until you have to make a decision,” he said. Later
in the hearing, he said, “We feel we’re at a point where we have to exercise whatever legal
authorities remain to get access to these properties.”
But Basham said CBP is still open to discussion over fence placement, and that the agency
is currently only taking legal measures to do survey work, not actual construction. “It does
not mean because we have access that we want to build a fence,” he said.
The Department of Homeland Security has already built 302 miles of fence, roughly half
for foot traffic and half for vehicles, as part of its Secure Border Initiative, a plan that
includes patrols, radar and aerial surveillance in addition to the physical barriers. Fence
placement has become a thorny issue with some, though, with landowners, legislators and
local officials expressing concerns ranging from property rights to environmental impact.
SBI Executive Director Gregory L. Giddens, another witness at the subcommittee hearing,
said that the project has put CBP in contact with more than 400 landowners. Their input has
resulted in “real changes” for the fence plan, and all but 77 — who represent 22 percent of
the land in question — have voluntarily allowed surveying, Giddens said.
Subcommittee Chairman David E. Price, D-N.C., said he wants the fence to be as
accommodating as possible to border stakeholders, saying that he has heard complaints from
legislators from the area. Price also questioned about how rigid the requirements for the
barrier are.
“The number 370 [miles of pedestrian fence] keeps getting repeated, but as you know, the
law says 370 miles, or the amount determined by the secretary,” he said.
Basham responded that 370 miles is an accurate assessment.
Democrat Ciro D. Rodriguez, who represents more border territory than any other
congressman, said he was pleased by compromises on the fence, such as a decision to go
around land owned by a community college, and acknowledged that “Where you have to
build it, you have to build it.”
But he also said that CBP officials have been more forceful with stakeholders than they
implied in the hearing.
“The meetings that I have had, I have been told where the fence is going to go,” Rodriguez
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said. “You told me where you were going to put it.”

He asked for more dialogue with Basham, which the commissioner promised.
Subcommittee ranking Republican Harold Rogers of Kentucky represented a different side
of the argument, saying that Congress demanded a fence, and DHS must meet that obligation
as quickly as possible.
“There’s a national mandate to build a fence to protect the border,” he said. “There’s
always going to be people who will complain. . . . I don’t think that anyone can say you have
not been open to consultation. But this is a national mandate. We want the fence built.
We’ve been saying it for years. And I don’t want you to stagger out of the gate.”
Rogers went on to say of the holdout property owners “A lot of these people who say
‘Don’t build the fence’ are going to be saying . . . ‘why can’t the government stop these
people from coming in?’”
Rob Margetta can be reached at rmargetta@cq.com.
(b) (6)
Secure Border Initiative
U.S. Customs and Border Protection
(b) (6)
For more information about the Secure Border Initiative, visit www.cbp.gov/sbi or contact us at SBI_info@dhs.gov.