Great Letter to the Editor
This was in today’s El Paso Times–I think it’s a great example of how short-sighted many of our policies are:
Stealing fence
When they started building the fence along the border, my dad told me that they were doing the ironworkers in Juárez a favor. He told me that the cuts along the fence were not so much as attempts to cross into the U.S., but attempts to secure raw materials.
He told me that there were many chicken houses in Juárez built from material taken from the fence. He took me to see where ironworkers were making barbecue grills and window guards using materials from the fence.
I now see that someone with native ingenuity has found a new use for material taken from the fence.
I hope that those in charge of securing the border with fences will see the futility of the exercise. As long as people yearn for a better tomorrow for themselves and their families, it will be an exercise in futility, no matter if they are Mexican, East German, Chinese, Ukrainian, etc, etc.
Maybe a better use can be found for the billions of dollars slated for fence building. How about some bridge building?
Fernando Peña Jr.
East El Paso
And then there’s this:
Air National Guardsman Arrested For Stealing Border Fence
Posted: May 7, 2008 09:11 PM
by Leasa Conze, KOLD News 13 Live at 5 Producer
A Wyoming Air National Guardsman is under arrest for stealing government property while he was deployed here in Arizona.
Investigators say Master Sergeant Robert J. Kelley of Carpenter, Wyoming, was working on the border fence near Sonoita in December, when he began stealing scrap metal, selling it, and pocketing the money.
The complaint claims Kelley was in uniform, driving a government-issued truck when he took five loads of the scrap metal from the project and drove it to a scrap metal company in Tucson.
Investigators say he received five checks from the various sales from December to March. Amounts ranged from $1,046 to $2,265.
In all, the sales totaled more than $8,000, which he used to buy personal items, like a gun, cowboy boots, tools and a garage door opener.
Kelley was arrested Wednesday in Phoenix. He’ll be in federal court in Tucson on Thursday.
If convicted, he could face up to 10 years in prison and a fine up to $250,000.
