Annotations for People: Mcgrath-mary

For weeks now, residents of several Southern Arizona communities have been debating a proposal by the Border Patrol to build a series of steel walls along their border with Mexico. The final decision rests with each of the local communities. Nogales, Douglas, and Naco. Reporter Manuel La Cadia was in the community of Naco, Arizona recently where a town forum about the issue took place.

Supporters of the Border Patrol's proposal to build the wall in the border of town of Naco, Arizona sat across the room from members of Hermanos Unidos against the construction of the wall, a coalition of human rights organizations. Mary McGrath, spokesperson for Hermano Unidos expressed the group's principal concerns.

This wall is racist and I know that no one likes that word, but that's the truth. You would never see this wall on the Canadian border. The difference is the people on the other side of a Canadian border would never put up with it, and they are also usually white.

Supporting the Border Patrol's contention that the four-mile-long structure is necessary to curtail illegal immigration and keep out criminals and drug traffickers. Members of the NACO Trade Alliance agree with Border Patrol officer Steve McDonald, who has been traveling throughout communities in southern Arizona trying to gain support for the wall.

It was very high, it was very thick. People will needed a blow torch to cut through it. We feel that it is needed because of the problems of cross-border criminals in these local areas. Problems of drug trafficking through these local areas and the problems of illegal immigration coming in the United States. We as an agency are tasked with enforcing that law, these immigration laws in the United States, and we feel it is necessary to help us regain control of our borders here in the United States.

I would like to talk about his, really get away from the emotional issues of the wall and talk about the aesthetics of that wall.

The Border Patrol not only has to contend with political opposition to the wall. Outspoken citizens are concerned that the wall won't be an eyesore. Builder David Epoli of the NACO Trade Alliance.

I think that I perhaps have found a way that we could make the walls look good. In Arizona, Cactus, I started building walls that look like falling down Santa Fe style adobe walls, they're plywood plastered over. That's all it is, plywood plastered over going onto an existing fence.

Opponents of the wall are not convinced that the wall is justified no matter how refined the structure. Guadalupe Castillo member of the La Semilla Organizing Project.

To me, it would even be more offensive to have an aesthetic wall. It would be like saying the Berlin Wall looked beautiful.

To Guadalupe Castillo. There is always the danger of militarizing the border with the wall being step in that direction.

We try to put again the issue as a law enforcement one, we militarize the zone, bring more Border Patrol, bring the Marines, bring the National Guard, bring the DEA. We can pour billions of dollars as we did in Vietnam and it will not resolve the problem.

But to those who are concerned about an increasing military presence along the border, Steve McDonald, Public Affairs officer for the Border Patrol is prompt to point out the limited role of the military in this endeavor.

The military role in this is to supply the labor, the engineering expertise, and the material for the fence. The landing mat that you have seen, at the NACO Station, that the fence is going to be made out of, they are not going to be down here in a enforcement role in the United States. The military cannot enforce civilian law, so they're only going to be here to build this fence.

The Border Patrol has already built a barrier project along the border in St. Luis Rio, Colorado. In Nogales, the proposal to build the fence there was first rejected, but now the board of supervisors is reconsidering. While in Douglas, Arizona, the proposal was flatly rejected. For Latino USA, this is Manuel La Cardia in Tucson, Arizona.