Arizona Border Fence Plan Stalled After 3 Years
A plan by Arizona lawmakers to build a mile of fencing along the border with Mexico using private money has stalled nearly three years after it was sanctioned by the Legislature.
Private donations expected to fund the project dried up after only a fraction of the funding was in hand, leaving the project far short of its goals, said Fox News Latino.
Lawmakers on a border security committee acknowledged the state has received just $264,000 for the project, well short of the $2.8 million needed to build the first mile of fencing, said Fox News Latino.
The plan originally called for collecting as much as $50 million to build a 15-foot fence at busy, yet-to-be-determined border-crossing points then erecting fences along miles of the state's 375-mile border that have no federal fences.
The Arizona Legislature's border security advisory committee, which includes lawmakers, sheriff's and state department heads, took no action this week on a new spending plan, said Fox News Latino. It also put off until next month a discussion on how to allocate what money it has.
Donations dried up less than six months after the state launched a website in 2011 to collect money for the project. In December of that year, the state had more than $250,000, but the tally remained at just over $264,000 on Wednesday.
Smith, R-Maricopa, said he still hopes to use the cash as seed money for some type of enhanced border security -- a fence or some other measure he declined to detail, the report said.
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