TORNILLO — Pecan farmer Shannon Ivey is all for increasing border security.
People who crossed the border illegally used to regularly cut through the fourth-generation Texan’s property in this small farming town about 40 miles from El Paso.
“Prior to the fence going up, we’d have groups of 30 to 40 people coming through all at once,” said Ivey, referring to the 18-foot barrier that was built on his property during the George W. Bush administration.
“But I think a combination of a fence, electronic surveillance, and boots on the ground. I think a nation has a right to secure its borders, so I’m a believer in that,” Ivey said.
But he is not convinced the border needs a new barrier.
“You don’t need a great wall of China. You don’t need a big, concrete wall,” he said.
Others on the border question the need for a wall, as well. Polls show a majority of border residents oppose the idea, and support has been waning nationally as well.
In Texas, some private property owners on the border balk at having the barrier on their land. A public backlash against border contractors bidding on the wall and the political fight in Washington are among other obstacles that will delay construction.
Debate over funding for the border wall nearly forced a federal government shutdown. The cost ranges from $21 billion estimated in a Department of Homeland Security memo to triple that amount in calculations by Senate Democrats.
{"type":"video","title":"Dallas News Video","author_name":"Dallas News","_id":"w0cTU1YjE6Owg9qa57mKFnPGMbSYNgdV","provider_name":"Ooyala","html":"
","raw":"{\"type\":\"video\",\"title\":\"Dallas News Video\",\"author_name\":\"Dallas News\",\"_id\":\"w0cTU1YjE6Owg9qa57mKFnPGMbSYNgdV\",\"provider_name\":\"Ooyala\",\"html\":\"\\u003Cdiv class=\\\"oo-vid-container\\\" data-oo-content-id=\\\"w0cTU1YjE6Owg9qa57mKFnPGMbSYNgdV\\\"\\u003E\\u003C\\/div\\u003E\\u003Cscript defer src=\\\"https:\\/\\/www.dallasnews.com\\/resources\\/motif\\/dist\\/js\\/ooyala.js\\\"\\u003E\\u003C\\/script\\u003E\"}","providerType":"ooyala","providerLink":"https://www.dallasnews.com/oembed","embedType":"video"}
Congress approved a $1.1 trillion spending bill that will keep the government operating through September. It includes $1.5 billion in “emergency” funds for border security with the caveat the money cannot be used to build the border wall. Republicans agreed with Democratic demands that the funds will pay for technology improvements and repairs to the existing fence and other border infrastructure.
President Donald Trump has vowed to fulfill his campaign promise to build a wall to keep criminals from entering the U.S. and to stop illegal immigration and drug smuggling. His original budget request included a down payment to begin construction of the wall and money for 20 lawyers to fight border property owners who oppose giving up their land.
Local governments on the border are among those against the wall.
“I placed an item on the City Council agenda to deny city contracts to companies involved in the construction of the border wall,” El Paso City Council member Peter Svarzbein said.
The city attorney said such a policy would be discriminatory, Svarzbein said. Instead, the council passed a resolution denouncing construction of the wall.
“If people understood this place, they’d know: A, it’s one of the safest cities. And B, we already have a security fence,” he said.
Along the border, many see the wall as impractical, a waste of money and in poor taste. They view it as an idea conceived by those who don’t know or understand the region.
“True border security is tied to economic security,” Svarzbein said. “To make the border secure here, we should be talking about investing in our ports of entry, in our infrastructure that helps to facilitate the safe, efficient crossing of goods and people.”
El Paso wants more funding for bridges, not walls. The city was the site of a 2013 pilot program that allowed municipal governments to pay overtime for Customs and Border Protection officers at international bridges during peak crossing times, including the busy holiday season.
The city spends about $1.3 million a year to help keep more international bridge lanes staffed and open to reduce border-crossing times.
Like thousands of other Ciudad Juarez residents, 20-year-old Estefania Galvan crosses the Paso del Norte bridge to visit relatives and shop in El Paso every week. With all the talk of the wall, Galvan, like many other Mexicans interviewed, said she’s thinking twice about where she should spend her hard-earned pesos. Mexican shoppers contribute $4.5 billion annually to the economies of Texas border cities, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
“As a Mexican, I question whether I should bother to come across anymore,” Galvan said. “My perspective has changed. I just don’t feel comfortable here anymore.”
The wall is such a sensitive issue that all nine of the El Paso companies bidding on the project declined to comment.
Both congressmen representing the El Paso area — Republican Will Hurd and Democrat Beto O’Rourke — oppose the idea of a wall. They talked about the issue together during a bipartisan road trip in March to Washington that they streamed via Facebook Live.
“We’re in agreement here that building a wall from sea to shining sea is the most expensive and least effective way to do border security,” Hurd said.
Nearly 700 miles of fencing exists along the 2,000-mile-long border now. Ivey’s farm is next door to an eight-mile gap. He favors filling in the gap by extending the existing fence rather than building a wall.
“I guess the bureaucrats in D.C. will figure out just how much of our taxpayer money they want to spend,” he said.
