Bush Hasn't Signed Fence Bill

Source: Mercury News

I think we're being played as sucker's here...

SAN DIEGO - A Republican congressman said Friday that a bill awaiting President Bush's signature categorically requires federal agencies to erect 700 miles of double-layered fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border, rejecting any notion that high-tech monitoring could be used instead.

Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine, said the Secure Fence Act, passed before Congress went into recess Sept. 29, would not grant the Department of Homeland Security leeway to rely on high-tech monitoring instead of physical barriers in five "smuggler's corridors" from California to Texas.

"They've got to build the fence," Hunter said. "That's what the bill mandates."

Hunter said the bill allows for other deterrents - cameras, roads, lights - to be implemented alongside an actual fence, to be completed by 2008.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has indicated support for a "virtual fence" that would rely on cameras and motion detectors to dissuade would-be illegal immigrants.

President Bush has not yet signed the Secure Fence Act, but earlier this week signed a $35 billion appropriations bill that included $1.2 billion for border fencing.

Mickey Kaus sez..

That signing ceremony he held last Wednesday in Arizona, it turns out, was only for a Homeland Security appropriations bill that included "$1.2 billion for border fencing." It wasn't the Secure Fence Act.

We're approaching pocket veto territory here, aren't we? Under the Constitution Bush has 10 days to sign the bill into law--a deadline that would seem to be rapidly approaching. ... [Thanks to reader M.M.]

P.S.: If I were paranoid, I would notice that even though WaPo and other MSM outlets have reported that Bush "has indicated that he will sign" the bill, he hasn't really.

Captain Ed sez...

It seems odd that Bush has not yet signed the Secure Fence act, and his opposition to all but a comprehensive approach to immigration may be tempting him to spike the bill. If he thinks that will happen quietly, though, he is sorely mistaken, and that tactic will rebound horribly against a Republican Party that has enough trouble on its hands in these midterm elections.

And the games go on. We need a revolution folks.  I keep asking this but, which part of this lying our president is doing, or this Clintonesque "triangulation" is it that you respect exactly?  The president knows that Americans are sick unto death of illegal immigration, his response?

Tough!

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