Landowners meet as fence construction nears

After a year of border fence protests in Brownsville, a meeting Saturday at a home that will soon be bisected by the barrier might be among the last opposition efforts before construction starts.

Approximately 15 people gathered in the Pamela Taylor's front yard in rural Southmost, including several area residents who spoke publicly for the first time about the fence and its impact on their properties.

"It's unfortunate that we even have to have a gathering like this," Diana Lucio said. "Because we're listening to each other, but I don't know if the government is listening to its own citizens."

Lucio and her husband run Fort Brown Memorial Golf Course, which will be left on the south side of the fence.

Saturday's meeting brought together landowners, like Lucio, who stand to lose their homes and livelihoods if the fence is constructed along its proposed path.

Last week, Lloyd Easterling, a spokesman for U.S. Border Patrol, told The Brownsville Herald that construction will begin in the "next couple of months."

"The fence, as it is designed, would leave two thirds of my land on the Mexican side," Dorothy Irwin said. "We believe the border fence belongs on the border, not a quarter mile or up to a mile or more away from the border."

Mayor Pat M. Ahumada also spoke, accusing the city commission of capitulating to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's demands, which unfairly target his constituents.

"Let's call a spade a spade," Ahumada said. "This agenda is a racist agenda."