On July 20, Arizona Republican Senator Steve Smith launched his Build the Border Fence website. During the 2011 legislative session the Republican clamheads, without a single Democratic vote, passed SB 1406, Smith's bill allowing the State of Arizona to accept donations that will be used to erect the border wall that GOP goobers complain Obama won't build.
It matters little that crime along the border is down, that immigration from the south has tailed off dramatically, that the Obama administration has deported more immigrants than his predecessor, that more than 4/5ths of Arizona's nearly 380-mile border is already fenced, or that fences don't work, unless your goal is to waste billions of dollars and mess up fragile ecosystems.
No matter: "The Feds are failing to secure the border," Smith and his Tea Party nitwits keep frothing. Funny, we seldom heard that hair-on-fire charge when a white Republican was President and apprehensions at the border were 60 percent higher. Funny, too, that that same Republican President Bush, along with Republican Senators like Arizona's John McCain, once supported genuine immigration reform. But when the new black Democrat in the White House introduced similar legislation, suddenly Senator McCain and other wingers interpreted "reform" as "amnesty."
In fact, when the Obama administration announced its new deportation policy on August 18, "amnesty" is the fear-mongering word that anti-immigration websites like Stand With Arizona featured right up front:
"This new amnesty would also grant hundreds of thousands or even millions of these illegals work permits to compete with the 22 million unemployed Americans struggling to make ends meet in this brutal economy."
Bullpuckey. It's not "amnesty," new or otherwise, by any stretch of the imagination. The policy merely allows overburdened law officials to devote their time and resources to investigating and deporting immigrants who have committed serious crimes. To say the program would grant "millions of these illegals work permits" is wrong on several counts: First, at most 300,000 cases will be reviewed and only a fraction of these will be granted "low priority." Hardly millions. Second, even the Arizona Republic, not exactly a left-leaning rag, exposes the "amnesty" lie:
[T]he policy change does not grant amnesty, or legal status, to illegal immigrants. Some may receive work permits, but they still won't qualify for any type of legal status or the benefits that go along with legal status, and they could still be deported later. Arizona Republic
None of this matters to Senator Smith, who's never seen a Mexican-bashing bill he doesn't like, whether it's intended to keep brown faces out of our classrooms or hospitals. Smith and fellow bigots like Senator Russell Pearce have such a hard-on for a border fence that, in the face of commonsense and other essential priorities, they'll waste valuable legislative time on this unnecessary, unfeasible dud across the desert. Their energy would've been better spent launching a donation website to save the lives of organ transplant patients who Smith and other heartless GOP pond scum booted from the state's healthcare program.
So let's see how the Senator's fence telethon is going.
When he launched the site in late July, Senator Smith said his goal was to raise $50 million. Estimates fluctuate but it costs around $4 million a mile to build the kind of fence Smith plans.
It cost between $2.6 million to $7.4 million per mile to build hundreds of miles of new fencing in Arizona over the last five years. The most recent project, replacing 2.8 miles of old fence in Nogales, cost $4.14 million per mile. Arizona Daily Star
Okay, for the sake of argument, and because Smith says he'll use immigrant labor that only costs 50 cents an hour, let's say Arizona can build the 18-foot-high fence Smith envisions for half the going rate, or about $2 million per mile. With his $50 million he could fill in another 25 miles of the border. Yippee! So, where do we stand?
After the website pulled in $80,000 in donations during its first two days, I said this in a previous diary:
Here's betting that by this time next week the site is pulling in a couple grand, by this time next month it'll be drawing less than I got for weekly allowance, and by this time next year people will be asking, "What border fence website? Oh, you mean those couple hundred thousand bucks they used to build that 20-foot-long wall near Naco?"
I checked the Build the Border Fence website today for an update, and the total is slightly more than $172,000 from 3,616 people. That means that after the initial two-day spurt of $80,000, the website has raked in roughly $2,000 a day. And most of that came in during the three weeks immediately after the website's launch:
Through 18 days, the state website to collect funds for a border fence has raised $158,430 -- an average of $8,801 a day. The pace has slowed down considerably since the brisk first two days when $80,000 came in. Arizona Daily Star
In fact, since those first 18 days, when the total was $158,430, donations have cratered to a total of about $17,000 over the next 26 days -- or about $650 a day. At this pace Senator Smith will have his $50 million in hand around the year 2200.
What's a guy to do? Because right now the Senator could only build about 1/10th of a mile, even on the cheap. No problem, he's got a better idea: donations! Do you happen to have some spare chain link fence in the garage? Maybe some old plywood? If so, please call the Senator because, according to a story today, he's out there hustling:
State Sen. Steve Smith says he's in contact with a fencing company about possible donation or sale at a low price several miles of welded wire fencing. Arizona Republic
Let's see: immigrant labor, donated supplies, wire fencing, hardly any cash, and no real plan to build on private property, tribal burial sites, or sensitive federal lands. Oh yeah, this has all the markings of another fantastic Arizona project. Maybe Senator Smith should call HGTV and get the crew from "Design on a Dime" to build his toy for a couple thousand bucks. Puce or magenta, Senator?