Judge orders school, feds back to drawing board

June 30, 2008 - 5:11PM
By Christopher Sherman, Associated Press Writer

(AP) - A federal judge ordered a Texas university and the government Monday to continue meeting in search of alternatives to building a border fence across campus.

The defeat for the Department of Homeland Security, which is rushing to meet an end of the year deadline, is at least a short-term victory for the University of Texas at Brownsville.

U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen said the government had not complied with the order he signed in March requiring the two sides to jointly come up with a better plan than the one that puts more than a quarter of the school's acreage behind the U.S.-Mexico border fence.

He ordered them to report back by July 31.

The University of Texas at Brownsville and its sister two-year school, Southmost Texas College, asked Hanen to force DHS to work with them for an alternative to a fence that would leave 180 acres of their campus - the university golf course - in no man's land behind the fence.

Hanen's March order asked DHS to consider the university's "unique status as an institution of higher education" and work to minimize the impact "on the environment, culture, commerce and quality of life."

Homeland Security says it can't come up with a viable alternative. The university said the government called the search for alternatives a "waste of time."

Homeland Security informed the university June 6 that it was proceeding with the fence as planned.

Homeland Security is racing to finish 670 miles of fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border by the end of the year. Congress set the goal in an effort to get a handle on illegal immigration and drug smuggling.

The land the golf course is on belongs to the International Boundary and Water Commission, but the university holds a 99-year lease on it. The government contends it can build parts of the fence on the property without the university's consent.

The university said the fence could pose a security threat by funneling illegal immigrants into the heart of campus. It could also foil university expansion plans south of the existing levees.

It also fears the damage by the fence of the school's binational mission.

"To slice off and fence off the 'bi' part of binational violates the essence of this university," President Juliet V. Garcia said Friday.

In court documents, the government argued that Hanen cannot stop it from moving ahead with condemnation.

"(Department of Homeland Security) has now conclusively determined that this nation's security requires, at this time, in conjunction with technology and personnel, a physical barrier at UTB," the government wrote.

The document also indicated that the government plans to file a new condemnation lawsuit against the university for 2.1 acres of land on or after July 1.