Gov. Bill Richardson, who won plaudits this week from foes of illegal immigration after he declared a state of emergency along New Mexico's southern border, said Sunday that plans to construct a border fence are anti-immigrant.
"A fence at the border is not going to work because, first of all, they're easily porous, and that sends a message that America is a nation that is not valuing immigrants," Richardson told ABC's "This Week."
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The New Mexico Democrat said he favors beefing up the Border Patrol instead, explaining: "You [add] border agents - 10,000 of them. Couple them with new technologies, like some of these [unmanned] vehicles and lasers and detection equipment."
Republicans, on the other hand, have praised the border fence provisions included in the Real ID Act of 2005, which funds the completion of a multi-layered fence along the California-Mexico border.
"One of the things the Real ID Act does is to build a double fence where there will be a path that the Border Patrol can run cars and SUVs on, between 40 and 50 miles an hour, to catch illegal aliens who jump over the first fence before they get to the second fence," Rep. James Sensenbrenner explained in March.
"West of [San Diego], that kind of a fence has worked, and it stopped the 10 murders a year that have occurred on the old segment of the border, and 300 drug runs in trucks per month have been stopped by that fence."
"We need to complete the fence," he urged.
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