Got this in an email from Steve Elliot at Grassfire.org

Douglas,

Congressman Duncan Hunter recently sent a letter to President Bush about the border fence. You could sum up Hunter’s letter in three words…

“Where’s The Fence?”

Rep. Hunter wrote, “We are falling behind in the construction of border security fencing” and “deadlines for the completion of fencing will not be met.”

What are those deadlines? Of the total 854 miles mandated by the Secure Fence Act, the law stipulates that 392 miles be completed from California to Arizona by May 31, 2008 and an additional 30 miles be completed near Laredo, Texas, by December 31, 2008.

+ + Progress report

How are we doing? According to Duncan:

“Only 17.9 of the 854 miles of fencing called for in the Secure Fence Act have been completed as of August 10, 2007.”

Just 17.9 miles — and let’s not forget that they are building the wrong kind of fence! The law stipulates a double layer fence but the Administration has built just one-layer fencing this year.

And now the President is pulling our border agents away from their assigned task of protecting our border and asking them to volunteer to build the fence!

Maybe the President ran out of money? Not quite. Hunter says that there should be $800 million available from the Fence Act to build the fencing.

Even at the estimated $3 million per mile, that’s 266 miles of fence funding — which would be a great start.

+ + What we’re doing and how you can help

Douglas, Grassfire is committed to winning this battle — to building on our momentum of defeating the
Bush-Kennedy amnesty bill and exerting grassroots pressure until the fence is actually built.

That’s why we are re-launching our “Where’s The Fence?” campaign. We reached 30-35 million people with this campaign during the amnesty debate. Now we want to take it one step further.

Our partners at Rapid Response Media are working on our new TV spot featuring those nice three ladies standing at the border looking for the fence. Wait till you see how these ladies respond to the President’s lack of progress on building the fence!

I expect to be able to show you this ad as soon as next week. But right now, I really need your help.

Will you make a gift right now to help Grassfire re-launch our “Where’s The Fence?” campaign at this critical time?

Go here:
http://www.grassfire.org/1098/offer.asp?RID=

(editor note: the email had bad links, so I put in this one)
Douglas, Duncan Hunter is right. It’s time to put some pressure on the President and Congress to actually build the fence. 17.9 miles is pathetic! And the greatest nation in the world should not be pulling our border agents off the line as fence construction volunteers!

Thanks in advance for your help!

Steve Elliott, President
Grassfire.org

P.S. I posted Duncan Hunter’s letter to President Bush in the forums on FireSociety. Go here to read the letter:

http://www.firesociety.com/forum/thread/16893/?src=111