Administration Moves to Bypass Laws to Complete Mexico Border Fence This Year

Faced with a litany of lawsuits and objections to its plans to build a 670-mile fence along the border with Mexico, the US administration today moved to bypass more than 30 laws and regulations in its effort to complete the fence by the end of the year.

Opposition to the 2006 Secure Fence Act, which instructed the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to build the fence by the end of 2008, has united an unlikely coalition of property owners and environmentalists.

Property owners and developers have launched numerous lawsuits to deny the government access to their lands, arguing that their property rights would be violated or that the values of their homes would suffer.

Environmentalists have launched legal actions against the government, saying that the plans would harm the natural habitats of species ranging from jaguars to owls.

Native American groups have also protested that their traditional lands and burial sites have been desecrated by the fence.

However, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said today, "Criminal activity at the border does not stop for endless debate or protracted litigation. These waivers will enable important security projects to keep moving forward."

The action by the administration echoes a controversial provision of the 2005 Real ID act, which allowed the DHS to waive any and all laws "necessary to ensure expeditious construction of the barriers and roads."

That provision is the subject of a legal challenge by the environmental groups the Sierra Club and Defenders of Wildlife questioning the constitutionality of the law. They have petitioned the US supreme court and expect to hear in the summer whether the case will be heard.

Oliver Bernstein of the Sierra Club criticized the administration's most recent move. "This is the latest effort from the Bush administration to waive environmental and other federal laws," he said today. "It threatens the livelihood and ecology of the entire US border region. This brazen move by the administration just bolsters our case that this section of the Real ID act is unconstitutional."

The approach of the DHS has also angered local politicians in Arizona and Texas, who have argued that the lack of consultation has worsened the problem.

The department, "would get farther and do better if they would just let locals give input on many of these matters," US representative Raul Grijalva of Arizona told the Christian Science Monitor last month. "A little bit less arrogance by the DHS would go a long way."

The Secure Fence Act authorized the DHS to build 670 miles of double-layer reinforced wall along five sections of the 1,969-mile US-Mexico border. The longest section, comprising 370 miles, would cross several protected areas, including the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area, home to the San Pedro river.

In Texas, the government has sued 50 landowners to gain temporary access to their properties to build the fence, while in Arizona a group of landowners is in dispute with the DHS over the amount of compensation offered while the fence is being built.

One of the more absurd impacts of the proposed fence would have divided the campus at the University of Texas Brownsville. A lawsuit brought by the university against the government was settled out of court last month.

The border fence project has run into innumerable problems. The much-vaunted "virtual fence" - a high-tech alternative to the wire and concrete structures being built along the border that promises to alleviate many of the environmental concerns, was recently delayed amid technical problems and rising costs.

Officials admitted in February that the first 100-mile stretch of the virtual fence would not be completed until the end of 2011, instead of its original deadline of the end of 2008. Boeing, the contractor chosen to build the virtual fence, has been paid more than $85m.

The DHS initially estimated that it would spend a total of $7.6bn constructing the 670-mile border fence.