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“Their job here is to help us, to be our eyes and ears and report to the agent who is nearby,” said Marfa sector deputy chief patrol agent John Smietana Jr.

Standing on a windswept hill overlooking the river about 20 miles southwest of Sierra Blanca, Smietana said the Texas Army National Guard troops now provide 24-hour surveillance along a stretch of the Rio Grande that is so parched it easily can be crossed on foot. Known as entry-identification teams, the soldiers have operated a lightly camouflaged lookout post for about a week.
July 28, 2006, 10:40PM; Eyes of Texas Guard on the border: Troops keeping watch on remote western stretch of Rio Grande; By JOHN W. GONZALEZ;
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle Google Map of Sierra Blanca, TX

See also this tv report from News5 about an observation post in the Valley that will be operated by the Guard for about another two years.

“Well I want to thank you all for coming to the City of Mission,” said Mayor Norberto Salinas in welcoming remarks before a hearing of the Texas Senate Committee on Transportation & Homeland Security.

“We welcome you. This is your home, and we are very proud and happy that you all decided, Mr. Chairman, to have your hearing here.

“This is a very important community now that we have been growing by leaps and bounds. The need for more money as far as our transportation is going to be needed in the future, connected to the bridge [see notes on Anzalduas Bridge under Read More below].

“We are very happy and very thankful to TexDot (Texas Department of Transportation) for being so much and for you all to have helped us so much in expanding our expressway 1016 and Terry Road.

“As you know we reconstructed the City of Mission to where it looks the way it looks now. We still have a little bit more to go. If we start construction of our bridge in December, we are going to have a connector that we would like to have, as a pass through toll road.

“A lot of people know how I feel about toll roads. I really don’t like them. I really want the state to pay for it. I think it’s only fair that people, that NAFTA created our problem here, and I feel that NAFTA and the state should pay for some of our transportation.

“Toll roads in this community, I think it’s out of the question, but I will abide by the decision that TexDot does. I would just like to not have them in Mission. But we are also very grateful for TexDot for doing so much for us, and the state, and the Governor, and of course you guys.

“So welcome to Mission, and anything you all might need, we’re here.”

New Anzalduas International Bridge

Anzalduas Project Summary – The Anzalduas International Crossing is a project being jointly developed by the Cities of McAllen, Hidalgo and Mission. It is strategically located approximately 5 kilometers west of the existing Hidalgo-Reynosa International Bridge. This project is totally justified by the unprecedented growth in international traffic and business in our segment of the US Mexico border. Traffic origin and destination studies conducted by independent experts conclusively state the need for this project. After meeting all requirements of the federal inspection and regulatory agencies, a United States Presidential Permit to construct the bridge and border station was issued in July, 1999. The permit allows construction to begin in April of 2003 and the port can be operational at the start of 2005. The Anzalduas Bridge Board has engaged Dannenbaum Engineering Corporation to design the international span, the access road, and the toll plaza and outbound facilities. The design phase of Phase I of the project which is the bridge structure is complete and Dannenbaum Engineering will soon be authorized to continue with the design of Phase II which will be the outbound inspection facilities, toll plaza, and administration building.

The General Services Administration will be responsible for designing and building the facilities to be utilized by the federal inspection agencies. GSA has engaged Marmon Mok to master plan the border station. After numerous meetings with all stakeholders in this project, the master plan is complete. In addition, GSA has indicated that they will likely utilize the design/build method in building their facilities. The congress has approved in the FY 04 budget, a total of $17,938,000. for the General Services Administratioin to build the inspection facilities.

Adjacent to this project is approximately a six thousand acre site under single ownership which has all the required infrastructure for development. The owners of this project have also committed to a minimum of ninety acres for the development of the border station and all the necessary right of way required to build this project.

This project is also being developed in Mexico. Promotora del Anzalduas, a private group, is developing this project and is responsible for acquiring all necessary permits. They have the total support of the City of Reynosa as well as the Governor of Tamaulipas and are very close to acquiring their presidential permit. Promotora del Anzalduas has completed all the required technical studies that the various Mexican federal agencies have requested. The Governor of Tamaulipas has officially requested the award of concession and that process is under review by the Secretariat of SCT. Promotora del Anzalduas as well as Reynosa Mayor Garcia Cabeza de Vaca are in support of this effort to award concession to the State of Tamaulipas. This award of concession will lead to the issuance of the final diplomatic note that will authorize construction. In fact, Mexico has officially committed in their latest diplomatic note that the construction will commence in the second semester of 2005 and that operations will begin at the end of 2006.

We have a project, a team, and financial capacity to provide both the US and Mexico with a unique opportunity. It is our intent to develop a state of the art facility that will serve to accommodate changing technologies, speed, and accessibility to markets.

Source:
http://www.medc.org/community_transportation.aspx

Thanks to the AP for these quotes from a hearing in Mission, TX:

State Sen. Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa, D-McAllen, said the committee must ensure that state funds newly dedicated to help border sheriffs are well-used.

Mr. Hinojosa asked Gov. Rick Perry in May to create rules on how the sheriffs can spend the $367,500 awarded to each of 16 border counties under Mr. Perry’s “Operation Linebacker.”

His letter to Mr. Perry expressed concern that El Paso County Sheriff Leo Samaniego was using grant money to run roadblocks and raids aimed at ferreting out illegal immigrants. Sheriff Samaniego has denied that, saying his department’s checkpoints were part of a traffic safety program.

State Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, said the panel also is concerned about National Guard deployment to assist the Border Patrol, which President Bush called for but is being directed by border state governors.

“We want to make sure they serve their purpose without impeding rights,” she said.

Cameron County Judge Gilberto Hinojosa testified that the deployment was perceived as a militarization. That could be upsetting to Mexican businessmen and shoppers who have made the Rio Grande Valley one of the top-performing retail areas in the U.S.

When Ms. Van de Putte asked how the Valley could maintain that status, Mr. Hinojosa said, “We certainly don’t do it by sending in the National Guard.” Note: the AP reports that Operation Linebacker is being “directed by border state governors”. But we challenge the AP to document that fact. Our own public information requests have yet to prove that the Governor has any role in Operation Jump Start other than issuing press releases saying that the operation is going “according to plan”. Would the AP do us the favor of asking the Governor for a copy of the plan? We’ve asked, and the Governor’s Office says it doesn’t have one.

SENATE
NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING

COMMITTEE: Transportation & Homeland Security

TIME & DATE: 10:00AM, Tuesday, August 8, 2006

PLACE: Irving, Texas

CHAIR: Senator John Carona

___________________________________________________________________________
The Senate Committee on Transportation and Homeland Security will meet on August 8, 2006, at 10 a.m. in the Irving Lecture Hall, Westin DFW Airport,
located at 4545 West John Carpenter Freeway in Irving, Texas, to consider the draft interim report and legislative recommendations of the Committee. To listen to audio from the July 26 hearing of the Texas Senate Committee on Transportation and Homeland Security in Mission, TX, go to the Texas Senate website.

We expected better from the Christian Science Monitor. A July 27 overview of troops at the border asks: “The question now is, will this latest US crackdown be enough?”

Yet the question of “will the crackdown be enough” ignores the evidence raised in the same article: that the crackdown may be wrongheaded.
Speaking to sources from the human rights community, the CSM article reports that “The one thing that can be said of the long US effort to curtail illegal immigration, they say, is that it has made crossing the border more dangerous.”

“As illegal immigrants have channeled into rural areas, one result has been rising numbers of deaths in the desert. Arizona saw a record 473 deaths last year – and human rights groups say that statistic is probably a fraction of the actual number, because many deaths go unreported.”

So instead of posing the question in terms of “crackdown enough?” the evidence in the article suggests other frameworks, such as: “is the latest US crackdown wise?” Is it just? Is it the best use of taxpayer money when addressing the issues of economics, immigration, and human rights?

In addition we would pose the question: is the latest US crackdown legal? As far as we can tell from our documentary explorations, the legal technicalities of Operation Jump Start are a shell game of undocumented military actions.

As readers of this Review well know, missions for Operation Jump Start in Texas are supposed to be pre-approved by the Governor, but the Governor says there are no documentary records to that effect. The Governor says the mission is going according to plan and that he is commander of Texas forces, yet the commander of Texas forces doesn’t have a copy of the plan.

CSM is a production of words, and those words suggest an orientation of mind. In the face of evidence contained in the CSM article, the leading question is poorly posed. Embedded journalism has come home to roost.