Texas Rep. Filemon Vela leads fight against Trump's border wall plans
Rep. Filemon Vela (D-TX 34th District) against Trump wall. / [screenshot CBS 4 News Rio Grande Valley via YouTube:https://youtu.be/SzYRfcDKPWw]
Donald Trump promised his fringe support that he was going to build a border wall along the Mexican-American border and use wildlife refuge to do it.
by Jon Mark
July 22, 2017 at 6:39 PM July 22, 2017 at 6:39 PM
Despite President Trump's suggestion to Senate Democrats this Wednesday that they not break for their August recess before legislating on the health care bill, it's still very likely that they will. The only formal statement made to delay the recess came from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. But Democrats are looking to slow down the Republican agenda before the recess, which includes them trying to stop the funding of Trump's border wall. The funding is part of a Homeland Security funding bill for 2018.
The bill includes $1.6 billion appropriated for 3-miles of border wall being prepared in secret in the federally owned Santa Ana National Wildlife refuge in Texas.
Democrats in the U.S. House who represent the border region signed and sent a letter to the budget appropriations committee on Friday telling them to oppose funding for the wall. Though its been six months since Donald Trump took office, the administration doesn't appear to be wasting any time with their border wall project. The Texas Observer reported that on the afternoon of July 14, there were several workers who were already starting to drill into an earthen levee at the wildlife refuge.
The construction workers were reportedly taking soil samples and preparing for construction. When the reporter for the Texas Observer began asking questions, security overlooking the site asked them to leave.
While there are plenty of reasons for a federally owned property to not want journalists snooping around, the reason for this was likely more diabolical. In this case, they didn't want the public to know that the state was preparing the site to begin building President Trump's border wall as soon as next January.
Wildlife refuge becomes refuge for controversial border wall
In the Texas Observer article titled: "Trump administration preparing Texas wildlife refuge for first border wall segment," it referred to a global engineering firm called Michael Baker International whose engineers had been attending meetings on the project that were likely held in secret.
This is due to the fact that the Trump administration had been keeping the overall planning and preparation for the project secret to avoid public criticism. Even after its been the perception that the administration had been faced with congressional obstacles to prevent funding for their wall, a wall President Trump said he would force Mexico to pay for.
The fact that the administration has started the construction of their wall in a wildlife refuge is not enough of an obstacle to stop them but easier as it is federal property. Currently, the Santa Ana Wildlife Refuge is one of the top birding destinations in the country. It's said to have 400 bird species and 450 species of plants, some of which are endangered.
One official who was asked by the the Texas Observer about the project said that the levee wall being constructed would extend for three miles but that it would eventually destroy the refuge. This is because the plans for the wall demand that there be a road and a clearing of land on both sides of it. The clearings would be where light towers, cameras and overall surveillance would be placed.
Protecting the wildlife refuge from Trump's agenda
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) spokesman Carlos Diaz confirmed that they had been holding secret meetings in order to complete President Trump's budget request. For the time being, because the land is federally owned, it is the only place the administration can use to build the three miles of wall.
Ninety-five percent of the wall would reportedly have to cut through private land which has already resulted in 320 condemnation suites, many of which are still pending. Diaz also confirmed why the anonymous government official said that the refuge would end up being destroyed. He confirmed that the CBP prioritized 28 miles of the new levee in the Rio Grande, 32 miles of the wall in the same place, with 14 miles of a second barrier in San Diego.
U.S. Rep. Filemon Vela -- a Democrat from Brownsville, Texas, and co-chair for the House Border Caucus -- was rather blunt in the letter. In it he said that he understood that Republicans wanted to give President Trump a "win" after the President's failed six months in office.
But he also added that the border wall would destroy the wildlife, rip apart their community and stomp on landowner's rights. Both Vela and Bennie Thompson -- who is the ranking Democrat on the House Committee of Homeland Security -- told the Texas Observer that they wanted a briefing with the CBP and that they were going to do everything in their power to stop Trump's border wall. Last year, Rep. Vela wrote a letter to Trump about his wall, calling him a "bigot" and telling him take the proposed border wall and "shove it up your a**."
Jon Mark
I absorb the "blast" of news stories every day so you don't have to. My topics of interest are with national security, foreign affairs, world news, humanitarian and activist causes, politics, science and finance.
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