United States and Mexico border wall a costly failure film says

Washington’s plan to build a fence on the border with Mexico has cost $3 billion and has not deterred illegal immigrants or drug traffickers from entering the country, according to a new U.S. documentary.”The Fence” hopes to show Americans, who were divided when construction of the wall was approved in 2006, that the venture is a failure as conceived and a blemish upon the United States internationally.It argues that illegals and smugglers can easily climb over, dig under and even drive over the wall, which is only a few feet (meters) high in parts, has no razor wire, and abruptly ends in the desert.

“One of the most confounding and little-known realities of the fence is that it only covers about one third of the 2,000-mile (3,218-km) border,” said Rory Kennedy, the director and narrator.Kennedy, who is a daughter of the late Senator Robert Kennedy, spent weeks traveling along the border from California to Texas as the fence was being built in 2009. It is expected to be completed by the end of this year.

Up to 500 people die every year crossing the U.S.-Mexican border, according to U.S. immigration experts and the Mexican government, a sharp jump from a decade ago. Tougher border security and the fence’s construction have forced migrants to take more dangerous, remote routes into the United States.Some 650 miles of the 670-mile wall called for under the Secure Fence Act and signed into law by U.S. President George W. Bush in October 2006 have been built. It contains 120,000 tons of metal and materials, ranging from railroad ties to concrete and chain link fencing.

“COMPLETE THE DANGED FENCE”

Lined in parts with stadium-style lights, cameras and roads to allow U.S. agents to patrol, the fence was partly a response to the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. It also aims to stop terrorists from crossing over from Mexico.”This was put up to illustrate to Joe whoever up in Dubuque (Iowa) or someplace that they see a picture of this and … they think ‘oh yeah, that’ll stop them’,” Arizona ranch owner Bill Odle said in the film. “Well of course it doesn’t.”

But it remains a magnet for Republicans keen to show their get-tough credentials in the run-up to the November U.S. elections. Arizona Republican John McCain, facing his toughest re-election battle in years for the Senate, demanded that the government in May to “complete the danged fence.”Despite calls for a fence along the entire U.S.-Mexican border, the terrain, which ranges from swamps to deserts, makes that idea almost impossible and financially prohibitive.

U.S. law enforcement uses helicopters, unmanned planes and agents in watchtowers and in vehicles to monitor the area stretching from the Tijuana-San Diego crossing in California to the Matamoros-Brownsville crossing in Texas around the clock.U.S. Border Patrol agents say the wall and virtual fencing cut the number of people caught trying to cross into the United States by a quarter in the fiscal year 2009.

Immigration experts counter that the deep U.S. recession in 2008-2009 and the resulting lack of jobs in the world’s biggest economy was a bigger factor behind the drop.Even with a sluggish economy, 300,000 illegal immigrants entered the United States every year between 2007 and 2009, according to the nonpartisan Pew Hispanic Center.But critics, both in the United States and Mexico, where there was an outcry when the plan was approved, also are questioning the wisdom of spending billions on the fence during hard economic times.

Future U.S. administrations are likely to spend $6.5 billion on maintenance of the fence over the next 20 years, the United States Government Accountability Office says, although researchers at the U.S. Congress say it could be more.The documentary airs on Thursday on U.S. cable television channel HBO.(Reuters)

Mexican forensic experts examine the body of 14 year-old Sergio Adrian Hernandez Huereca

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico A spokeswoman for the FBI tells The Associated Press that Mexican soldiers pointed their rifles and chased away U.S. Border Patrol agents investigating the shooting of a 15-year-old Mexican.The boy was shot by a Border Patrol agent who says he was defending himself from rock throwers along the nearly dry Rio Grande that divides Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, from El Paso, Texas.

FBI spokeswoman Andrea Simmons said Wednesday that Border Patrol investigators were forced to leave the scene Monday night after soldiers aimed guns at them from across the river.Mexicans are seething over the second death of a countryman at the hands of U.S. Border Patrol agents in two weeks, a shooting near downtown El Paso that is threatening to escalate tensions over migrant issues.U.S. authorities said Tuesday a Border Patrol agent was defending himself and colleagues when he fatally shot the 15-year-old as officers came under a barrage of big stones while trying to detain illegal immigrants on the U.S. side of the Rio Grande.

About 30 relatives and friends gathered late Tuesday to mourn Sergio Adrian Hernandez Huereka, who died Monday on the Mexican side of the river border with Texas.”Damn them! Damn them!” sobbed Rosario Hernandez, sister of the dead teenager, at a wake in the family’s two-room adobe house on the outskirts of Ciudad Juarez.

Preliminary reports on the incident indicated that U.S. officers on bicycle patrol “were assaulted with rocks by an unknown number of people,” Border Patrol Special Operations Supervisor Ramiro Cordero said Tuesday.”During the assault at least one agent discharged his firearm,” he said. “The agent is currently on administrative leave. A thorough, multi-agency investigation is currently ongoing.”

The shooting happened beneath a railroad bridge linking the two nations, and late Tuesday night a banner appeared on the bridge that said in English: “U.S. Border Patrol we worry about the violence in Mex and murders and now you. Viva Mexico!”Less than two weeks ago, Mexican migrant Anastasio Hernandez, 32, died after a Customs and Border Protection officer shocked him with a stun gun at the San Ysidro border crossing that separates San Diego and Tijuana, Mexico. The San Diego medical examiner’s office ruled that death a homicide.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon said Tuesday that his government “will use all resources available to protect the rights of Mexican migrants.”The government “reiterates its rejection to the disproportionate use of force on the part on U.S. authorities on the border with Mexico,” the president added in a statement.

On an unpaved street, gathered around Hernandez’s gray metal casket, the teen’s family called for justice.”There is a God, so why would I want vengeance if no one will return him to me. They killed my little boy and the only thing I ask is for the law” to be applied, said the boy’s father, Jesus Hernandez.

His mother was less hopeful. “May God forgive them because I know nothing will happen” to them, Maria Guadalupe Huereka said.Above the casket was a photo of the youth wearing his soccer uniform and his junior high school grade cards, which showed A’s and B’s.

His mother said he was a good student who never got in trouble. He was the youngest of five children, played on two soccer teams and had just finished junior high school, she said.Amnesty International condemned the shooting and urged the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to conduct an urgent review of the use of force by Border Patrol agents.

“This shooting across the border appears to have been a grossly disproportionate response and flies in the face of international standards which compel police to use firearms only as a last resort,” said Susan Lee, Americas director of the London-based human rights organization.Arturo Sandoval, a spokesman for the Chihuahua state Attorney General’s office, said a spent .40-caliber shell casing was found near the body – raising the question of whether the fatal shot was fired inside Mexico, although he did not explicitly make that allegation.

That would violate the rules for Border Patrol agents, who are supposed to stay on the U.S. side of the border – and it also could open the agent to a Mexican homicide prosecution.A U.S. official said video shows the Border Patrol agent did not enter Mexico.

The official, who agreed to discuss the matter only if not quoted by name, said the video also shows what seem to be four Mexican law enforcement officers driving to the edge of the dry but muddy bed of the Rio Grande, walking across to the U.S. side, picking up an undetermined object and returning to Mexico near the area where the boy’s body was. Like their U.S. counterparts, Mexican law officers are not authorized to cross the border without permission.

According to the FBI, Border Patrol agents were responding to a group of suspected illegal immigrants being smuggled into the U.S. near the Paso Del Norte bridge, across from Ciudad Juarez around 6:30 p.m. Monday.One suspected illegal immigrant was detained on the levee on the U.S. side, the FBI said in a statement. Another Border Patrol agent arrived on the concrete bank where the now-dry, 33-foot (10-meter) wide Rio Grande is, and detained a second person. Other suspects ran back into Mexico and began throwing rocks, the FBI said.

At least one rock came from behind the agent, who was kneeling beside a suspected illegal immigrant whom he had prone on the ground, FBI spokeswoman Andrea Simmons said.The agent told the rock throwers to stop and back off, but they continued. The agent fired his weapon several times, hitting one person who later died, said the FBI, which is leading the investigation because it involved an assault on a federal officer. The agent was not injured, Simmons said.

The boy was shot once near the eye, Sandoval said. Authorities were still investigating the bullet’s trajectory, he said.Sandoval said he couldn’t comment on the video reported by the U.S. official because he didn’t know anything about it. “I am unaware about those hypotheses,” he said.

Sandoval said Mexican investigators were questioning three teenagers who were with the victim at the time of the shooting.The boy’s sister, Rosario, told Associated Press Television News that her brother was playing with several friends and did not plan to cross the border.

“They say that they started firing from over there and suddenly hit him in the head,” she said.The boy’s mother said he had gone to eat with his brother, who handles luggage at a border customs office. While there, he met up with a group of friends and they decided to hang out by the river, she said.

“That was his mistake, to have gone to the river,” she said in an interview with Mexico’s Milenio TV. “That’s why they killed him.”Mexico’s Foreign Relations Department said its records indicate the number of Mexicans killed or wounded by U.S. immigration authorities rose from five in 2008 to 12 in 2009 to 17 so far this year, which is not half over.

T.J. Bonner, president of the union representing Border Patrol agents, said rock throwing aimed at Border Patrol agents is common and capable of causing serious injury.”It is a deadly force encounter, one that justifies the use of deadly force,” Bonner said. (AP)

Major League Baseball to take any kind of strong stance on Arizona's controversial new immigration law

Don’t expect Major League Baseball to take any kind of strong stance on Arizona’s controversial new immigration law  if baseball ever gets around to commenting on it at all.Commissioner Bud Selig can’t go around shaking his fist and making threats to take the 2011 All-Star Game out of Phoenix, for instance, when he’s got his other hand in Arizonans’ pockets fishing for money for the Cubs’ new spring-training facility.

Selig may have no choice but to bite his lip and remain conspicuously silent on the subject.But standing idly by while others fight the battle on this wrong-headed law is reprehensible for an industry with so much potentially at stake, an industry more deeply invested in Arizona than any other professional sports league and with more Spanish-speaking, foreign-born players than any other league — not even counting the hundreds of minor-leaguers who fit that description.The Cubs alone have 13 players on their 40-man roster who were born in Latin American countries and another 104 among the minor-leaguers listed in the media guide.The battleground already reached the Cubs’ doorstep last weekend when protesters of the law demonstrated outside Wrigley Field when the Cubs played the Arizona Diamondbacks.The law requires police to question, with reasonable cause, people they suspect of being in the country illegally.

Even proponents all but admit the law is unnecessary considering it mirrors existing federal laws, which seems to make its only purpose to create enough of an onus and pressure on local cops to assure heavier doses of racial profiling and harassment (requisite anti-discrimination, window-dressing language aside).President Obama, lawmakers from other parts of the country and the major-league players union are among those who publicly oppose the law, which is being challenged in the courts.

Plenty of strong opinions

Within baseball, players such as San Diego Padres star Adrian Gonzalez, who was born in San Diego and spent some of his childhood in Tijuana, have been especially vocal in their opposition. Gonzalez called the law ”immoral” and called for baseball to boycott Arizona spring training if the law still is on the books next February.He and White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen both have said they’d boycott the 2011 All-Star game if selected to participate.Some of the Cubs’ Latin players were less strident or unwilling to talk publicly about it.

But Venezuelan-born pitcher Carlos Silva, who now lives in Minnesota, said he has thought a lot about how it might impact him and other Latin players. ”It’s kind of tough for us,” he said, ”especially for me — I look like a Mexican. I’m going to get stopped a lot of times.”He said he joked with his wife that she shouldn’t be surprised if he calls her from Mexico.This isn’t baseball’s law. And many say it’s not baseball’s place to get involved. But it could become baseball’s problem.

Said former Cub Cesar Izturis: ”Now they’re going to go after everybody, not just the people behind the wall. Now they’re going to come out on the street. What if you’re walking on the street with your family and kids? They’re going to go after you.”

Proponents of the law have said those kinds of fears are unfounded. And maybe they’re right.But those kinds of fears are real. And the first time this new law produces a publicized wrongful detention of a citizen, they’re going to grow.And there’s enough history of bigotry and profiling in this country to justify the fears.

In addition, the Phoenix and Maricopa County authorities have a reputation for being among the more aggressive in the West, if not the U.S.Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who already has been heavily criticized for his aggressive enforcement of immigration laws, is regionally famous for his road-side chain gangs of county inmates and calls himself ”America’s toughest sheriff.”This is the place where drunk drivers get sentenced to a tent city. And a place where police practice an unwritten policy of DUI-stop quotas.

A friend from Chicago who hasn’t had a drink in more than 10 years tells the story of being pulled over one night during spring training for ”weaving in your lane.” After eventually convincing the cop he was sober and persistently challenging the notion he’d done anything worthy of being stopped, the cop finally admitted he was required to stop a certain number of drivers every shift.Bottom line: It’s an MLB issue How does Bud Selig think this new immigration law is going to play out in the hands of these local authorities? And why wouldn’t guys like Silva or Izturis be concerned?

It’s not about whether they’re legal or if they’ll have documents to prove it. It’s about the potential for being singled out because of what they look or sound like, for being hassled disproportionately, for being afforded a different set of civil rights.For instance, does anybody think Canadian Ryan Dempster will face the same scrutiny?While Selig may be fumbling to keep his eyes, ears and mouth covered while keeping one hand free to dig for Arizona taxpayer money, believe this: This law is a baseball issue.Possibly baseball’s problem.And the longer he pretends it doesn’t concern him, the worse he and the game look.

A 7.2 magnitude earthquake struck northwest Mexico's Baja California state Sunday

A 7.2 magnitude earthquake struck northwest Mexico’s Baja California state Sunday, rattling Arizona and southern California, and leaving at least two dead and more than 100 injured in Mexico, authorities saidAt least one person was killed in a building collapse in Mexicali, Mexico, according to the assistant director of civil protection in Tijuana.

The other victim died when he ran from his residence into the street and was hit by a car, said Alfredo Escobedo, Baja state’s director of civil protection.

More than 140 people were treated at local hospitals, including five who were in critical condition, said Rigaberto Lasoya, medical coordinator for the state of Baja. Some were being treated outside because there’s no electricity and water at the main hospital, Lasoya said.

All injuries are concentrated in Mexicali, officials said.In California and Arizona, there were no immediate reports of injuries and only limited reports of damages.The quake struck at 3:40 p.m. (6:40 p.m. ET) about 110 miles east-southeast of Tijuana, Mexico, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Pictures from Mexicali, a major metropolitan area and the capital of Mexico’s Baja California state, showed sides ripped off buildings, telephone poles toppled, roads cracked and supermarket aisles strewn with food that had fallen off shelves.

The entire city has lost power, according to Alan Sandoval, Tijuana’s assistant director of civil protection

iReport.com: Water splashes out of San Diego, California,Residents across Southern California and Arizona reported serious ground shakes.”We have not felt a shake like that since about 1979,” Michelle Tapia told CNN from Brawley, California, approximately 23 miles north of the Mexican border.

iReport.com: Pots clang in San Diego, California, homeJoe Madison was shopping at a Wal-Mart in Palm Springs, California, when he felt the earthquake.”I felt the entire store move, and people went running for the exits,” he said.Madison said people gathered outside in the parking lot until the shaking stopped.”We felt it for about 30 seconds. It was rolling,” San Diego County sheriff’s Lt. Scott Ybarrondo told CNN. “Nothing fell off the walls here, but we have reports of pictures falling off walls elsewhere in the county.”

The quake was the largest in the Baja California area since 1992, the USGS reported.iReport.com: Damage in a bookstore in Palm Desert, CaliforniaThe 1992 quake, which struck in Landers, California, triggered an earthquake the next day in Nevada and another quake 11 days later in Southern California, according to USGS seismologist Lucy Jones. Both were 5.7 magnitude quakes.

Jones said Sunday’s quake also could trigger others in the coming days, though she said the relatively quiet hours after Sunday’s quake make other big quakes less likely.There have been three large aftershocks so far, including one that registered a 5.5 magnitude, and other smaller temblors, USGS said.Chandeliers swung and water sloshed around in swimming pools in the Los Angeles suburbs, witnesses reported, while posters to Twitter reported feeling the quake in Phoenix, Arizona.

Capt. Steve Ruda, a spokesman for the Los Angeles city fire department, said there were isolated power outages and a few people reported trapped in elevators, but no injuries or structural damage were reported.Nine minutes after the Mexico quake, a magnitude 4.1 quake rattled windows in Santa Rosa, north of San Francisco. No damage was reported there, and Susan Potter, a USGS geophysicist, told CNN that was a separate quake from the one that struck in the Baja California desert.The USGS initially reported that the Baja California quake had a 6.9 magnitude. The USGS upgraded the quake about an hour later.