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Security Infrastructure At The Border Protected From Lawsuits
The Department of Homeland Security has generous legal protections when it comes to environmental and private property damage attributable to the border fence.
Capitol Media Services reports that was a recent ruling in the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a case that involved the owners of Gringo's Pass Inc., a grocery store and gas station in the tiny community of Lukeville, Ariz.
The owners sued the federal government for $6 million for storm damage they argue was caused by the border fence blocking drainage across natural washes.
The ruling found that a 1996 federal law gives DHS the ability to waive any legal requirements that stand in the way of a “expeditious construction of barriers and roads" designed to secure the Southwest border.
U.S. District Court Judge David Bury wrote in his ruling that the law protects the federal government from private lawsuits even if that protection "becomes a shield for carelessness and poor judgment."
In the 1990s illegal border crossings skyrocketed in urban centers like San Diego and El Paso. Stricter enforcement in those areas then pushed the traffic in even higher numbers to the Arizona desert. Congress responded by ordering 700 miles of border fencing.
Fencing was completed along this stretch of border in 2008, but a storm later that summer revealed that the fence had blocked the flow of sediment and debris. More problems occurred in a subsequent storm in 2010.
Gringo Pass attorneys reportedly argued that the fence was poorly designed and violated environmental standards. Bury wrote that those arguments had no standing:
First, the government constructed the fence for military and security purposes that by their nature involve “judgment as to the balancing of many technical, military, and even social considerations. Second, the fence design was predicated on border security and other policy considerations that require government discretion.
Across the southern border environmentalists have protested security infrastructure for years
In Southern California, a problematic area known as "Smuggler's Gulch" was transformed by federal authorities. They filled in the deep gulch with mounds of dirt and built roads and fencing on top.
The U.S. Border Patrol argues the fence helps them control and manage illegal traffic more efficiently. Across the Southwest, border immigrant apprehensions are at a historic low.
Even still, environmentalists like Mike McCoy in San Diego think there should be more compromise when it comes to border security. He spoke with Fronteras Desk reporter Jill Replogle in August.
I just think that we could’ve done better with another approach, biologically and ecologically,” he said. "It's kinda my-way-or-the-highway type of thing. And that's not the way America worked to me. We all had a say in what went forward.