Americans split over the massive fencing project

EILEEN SULLIVAN

The U.S. fence along the Mexican border is less a wall than a stuttering set of blockades: half barrier, half gaps.
Americans are split pretty much the same way: half in favor, half against, passionate on both sides when it comes to the idea of erecting a wall to keep people from entering the country illegally.
It can seem a shaky foundation as the United States rushes to complete the fencing on nearly 700 miles of the border by the end of the year. That's when a new administration arrives in the White House with its own ideas about security, freedom, the 11 million illegal immigrants already here and the prospect of many more on the way.
Nearly half complete, the multibillion-dollar fence project stretches from the Pacific surf at Tijuana to the Gulf of Mexico near Brownsville, Texas. The messages it sends are decidedly mixed.
For Rep. Peter King, the New York Republican who wrote the legislation to build the fence, the message is simple: Don't sneak into America; we are taking control of our borders.
For others, the fence is inconsistent with a country founded by immigrants and priding itself on opportunity.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff says it's simply a new law enforcement device, part of a multipronged crackdown on the flow of illegal immigrants. The government also has hired more border agents, stepped up enforcement nationwide and increased penalties for those who don't follow the law.
"I don't invest the fence with the iconic significance that some people place on it," Chertoff says. "To some people, it is a be-all and end-all of controlling the border. To some people, it is a symbol of . . . the Berlin Wall. I think it's a tool."
The concept of a border fence took on new life after Sept. 11, 2001, which revived the heated immigration debate. Intelligence officials have said the holes along the Southwest border could provide places for terrorists to enter the country.
About 317 miles of the Southwest border fence have been built, with plans for another 353 miles by the end of the year. Longer term, there are plans for fencing or surveillance and detection technology along the entire 2,000-mile border by 2010.
An Associated Press-Ipsos poll last month found Americans just about as split as they could be: 49 percent in favor of the fence, 48 percent opposed. Tellingly, 55 percent think it won't fix the problem.
Congress already has allocated $2.7 billion for fence construction, and there's no estimate how much the entire system - the physical fence and technology - will cost to build, let alone maintain.
All three major presidential contenders supported legislation that called for building the fence, but Sens. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and Barack Obama, D-Ill., have softened their positions when the topic has come up during the campaign. Both now say they will listen to landowners who object to the fence.
Building fences is not a new idea, and people who desperately want to get into the United States will always find ways around the barrier, said Adrian Lewis, chairman of the history department at the University of North Texas.
He cites the heavily armed demilitarized zone between North Korea and South Korea, where he says people continue to get through by tunneling underground.
Fences, Lewis says, are placebos. "It makes people feel good. It doesn't really do anything."
Homeland Security counters that its plan is already working. And that the number of people caught trying to cross illegally has gone down, meaning fewer people are taking their chances now that the barriers are in place.