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 News from Around the Americas | June 2006 
Ranchers Add Ladders to Border Fences
 Lynn Brezosky - Associated Press
| | Border Patrol agent J. Kicklighter scales a game fence using a home-made ladder on a rach near Falfurrias, Texas, Wednesday, June 14, 2004. Some South Texas ranchers, sick of having their pricey fences slashed by illegal immigrants trying to avoid Border Patrol checkpoints, have installed rudimentary ladders along the fences, hoping the migrants will take the easy route and save their fence line. (AP Photo/Eric Gay) |
A few Texas ranchers tired of costly repairs to cattle fences damaged by illegal immigrants have installed an easier route over the U.S.-Mexican border — ladders.
"It's an attempt to get them to use the ladders instead of tearing the fences," said Scott Pattinson, who owns one of a group of ranches known as La Copa.
La Copa is just south of a U.S. Border Patrol highway checkpoint that went up 75 miles from the border several years ago, sending migrants through the brambly scrub of nearby ranches instead.
Some immigrants walk for hours or days to skirt the checkpoints in temperatures hovering around 100 degrees. Their feet have worn visible paths through a forest of cactus and mesquite otherwise thick enough to conceal them from Border Patrol helicopters overhead and agents only a few hundred yards away.
The paths lead from one ripped-down section of fencing to another. Texas ranches can be so large it could be days before owners notice the hole in the fence, long after the livestock possibly escapes.
Paul Johnson protects his 2,700-acre exotic game ranch of zebras, scimitar-horned oryx and wildebeests with about 10 miles of high wire fence, and joined his neighbors in placing ladders along the way.
But apparently some immigrants think the ladders are too good to be true.
"They ignore it a lot," Johnson said. "They're afraid that they're monitored by the Border Patrol."
Johnson plans to take the ladders down, worried about the message he's sending.
"I think what it does is give a signal that we are wanting them to cross there, don't mind the crossing, and that kind of magnifies the problem," he said.
Rancher Michael Vickers never liked the ladder idea and instead has ringed his fence with 220 volts of electricity.
"I've had a dose of it myself, it's not fun," he said. "That's just my attitude, why make it easier for them to trespass?"
Minutemen Hire Contractor to Build Fence
AP
The Minutemen civilian border-patrol group has hired a contractor to finish building 10 miles of fence along the Mexican border.
Construction on the fence began May 27, when about 150 supporters turned out for the groundbreaking, but the number of volunteers then dwindled.
"We don't want to put up something that will just be a symbol," said Al Garza, the group's executive director. "We want to make sure it's permanent, properly structured and done right."
As few as four people were observed working on the fence recently, said Cecile Lumer of the humanitarian aid group Citizens for Border Solutions.
"From the beginning, the numbers they have projected have always fallen very short of the reality," Lumer said.
One of the ranch owners, Jack Ladd, said he hoped the fence would keep Mexican livestock off his property, but he doubted it would keep people out.
"We want to make it clear that while we oppose illegal immigration, we weren't necessarily trying to keep Mexicans off the land," he said. |
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