"1,954-mile ‘energy park’ would pay for border wall, create economic boom"

"A new plan to undertake the largest infrastructure project in world history would build a 1,945-mile “energy park” that would pay for itself, deploy sophisticated security to the sometimes dangerous area and turn a largely deserted area into an economic engine."

The plan just released would also build on the cooperative relations between Washington and Mexico City to have both countries build the energy wall.

“Just like the transcontinental railroad transformed the United States in the 19th century, or the Interstate system transformed the 20th century, this would be a national infrastructure project for the 21st century,” said Luciano Castillo, Purdue University's Kenninger Professor of Renewable Energy and Power Systems.

(Click image to enlarge)

He heads the effort authored by 28 engineers and scientists, several of whom are members of the National Academy of Engineering. The school, led by Purdue President Mitch Daniels, a former White House budget director, is running the project.

“It would do for the southwest what the Tennessee Valley Authority has done for the southeast over the last several decades,” said Castillo.

Essentially, the plan would string a train of energy panels, wind turbines, national gas pipelines along the border bookended by desalination plants, creating what the experts said would be a highly protected energy industrial park.

"Fewer Agents Projected to Patrol Border"

KRGV.com: The agency [Department of Homeland Security] is budgeting for 300 fewer agents in 2017 than they did for this fiscal year.

Since September, Border Patrol agents have been catching more unaccompanied children and families at the border.

“One, we have people turning themselves in at unprecedented rates. Then we have the people that are always coming in illegally,” National Border Patrol Council Local 3307 Vice President Chris Cabrera said. “Then we have the drug flow that’s coming north and the money that’s going south and guns that are going south. And to cut jobs at a time like this is a recipe for disaster.”

For the 2017 fiscal year, Border Patrol plans to field a little more than 21,000 agents. By its projections, the agency pays $181,000 per year in operational costs for each agent.

"DHS Secretary: 'Thousands' of Unaccompanied Children..."

"Still Crossing Into U.S."

Unaccompanied children crossing the southern border into the United States still number in the thousands, probably the tens of thousands, even though the percentages are lower, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson told Congress on Thursday.

"For the kids, unaccompanied kids, it's running about 40 percent lower," Johnson said. "I hope it stays that way, but we have to be prepared in the event it doesn't."

(AP Photo)

Gov. Perry sending National Guard to border

"[According to a not yet released memo] Texas Gov. Rick Perry plans to announce he will activate the Texas National Guard at a news conference Monday in Austin, said state Sen. Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa, D-McAllen. 

...Troops are expected to enter the area gradually, building up to 1,000 after about a month, the memo said.

...State leaders approved funding for extra DPS troopers to fill in gaps in Border Patrol coverage in the Valley as the federal authorities were overwhelmed with an influx of children and families from Central America. The state officials feared Mexican drug cartels might exploit the situation to move their own drugs and human contraband while Border Patrol attention was turned elsewhere.

Hinojosa said Perry's move smacked of political gamesmanship.

“All these politicians coming down to border, they don't care about solving the problem, they just want to make a political point,” he said.

“This is not a militarization of the border,” the memo states. “The DPS and the National Guard are working to keep any drug and human trafficking south of (U.S. Highway) 83 and with the goal of keeping any smuggling from entering major highways to transport East/West/and North.”

...“It is not clear where the money will come from in the budget,” the memo states, adding that Perry's office has said the money will come from “non critical” areas, such as health care or transportation.

Hinojosa said the National Guard was not equipped to aid immigrants crossing the Rio Grande.

“They (cartels) are taking advantage of the situation,” he said. “But our local law enforcement from the sheriff’s offices of the different counties to the different police departments are taking care of the situation. This is a civil matter, not a military matter. What we need is more resources to hire more deputies, hire more Border Patrol.

“These are young people, just families coming across. They're not armed. They're not carrying weapons.”"

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Do you agree with Texas state senator Hinojosa that 1) National Guard troops are not equipped to aid immigrants crossing the Rio Grande, and 2) that resources should be diverted to hiring more deputies and Border Patrol, because this is a civil, not a military matter?

The Monitor via Memeorandum

President to meet with Gov. Perry for border discussion

"Gov. Rick Perry turned down what he characterized as President Barack Obama’s offer for a “quick handshake on the Tarmac” when the president arrives in Austin on Wednesday. But Perry said he would juggle his schedule to accommodate a “substantive meeting” with Obama on border security any time during his two-day visit to Texas.

Late Monday, Valerie Jarrett, senior advisor to President Obama, replied to Perry affirmatively, saying, “The president would welcome a meeting with you while he is in Texas.”

In the two-page letter obtained first by the American-Statesman, Jarrett also invited Perry to join faith leaders and local elected officials for a round table discussion on the border that has been added to the president’s schedule while he is in Dallas on Wednesday. It wasn’t immediately clear how Perry would respond.

The president is spending two days in Texas, raising money for national Democratic coffers in Dallas on Wednesday and in Austin on Wednesday evening and Thursday morning. His only public event in Austin will be a discussion of the economy at the Paramount Theater on Congress Avenue on mid-day Thursday. There was no plan to visit the southern border while in Texas, but the newly-added Dallas round table means that he will be addressing the issue of illegal immigration head-on while in the state."