Faced with a litany of lawsuits and objections to its plans to build a 1,078km fence along the border with Mexico, the US government moved on Tuesday to bypass more than 30 laws and regulations in its effort to complete the fence by the end of the year.
Opposition to the 2006 Secure Fence Act, which instructed the Department of Homeland Security to build the fence by the end of this year, has united an unlikely coalition of property owners and environmentalists.
Property owners and developers have launched numerous lawsuits to deny the government access to their lands, arguing that their property rights would be violated or the values of their homes suffer.
Environmentalists have challenged the government, saying that the plans would harm the natural habitats of species ranging from big cats to owls.
Native American groups have also protested that their traditional lands and burial sites would be desecrated by the fence.
The administration's action echoes a controversial provision of a 2005 act, which allowed the Department of Homeland Security to waive all laws "necessary to ensure expeditious construction of the barriers and roads."
That provision is the subject of a legal challenge by the environmental groups the Sierra Club and Defenders of Wildlife questioning the constitutionality of the law.
They have petitioned the Supreme Court and expect to find out in the summer whether the case will be heard.
Oliver Bernstein of the Sierra Club criticized the administration's most recent move.
"This is the latest effort from the Bush administration to waive environmental and other federal laws," he said. "It threatens the livelihood and ecology of the entire US border region."
The government's approach has also angered local politicians in Arizona and Texas, who have argued that the lack of consultation has worsened the problem.
The Department of Homeland Security, "would get farther and do better if they would just let locals give input on many of these matters," Representative Raul Grijalva of Arizona told the Christian Science Monitor last month. "A little bit less arrogance by the Department of Homeland Security would go a long way."
The secure fence act authorized the government to build 1,078km of double-layer reinforced wall along five sections of the 3,169km US-Mexico border.
The longest section, comprising 595km, would cross several protected areas, including the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area.
In Texas, the government has sued 50 landowners to gain temporary access to their properties to build the fence, while in Arizona a group of landowners is in dispute with the department over the amount of compensation offered while the fence is being built.
One of the more absurd impacts of the proposed fence would have divided the campus at the University of Texas Brownsville. A lawsuit brought by the university against the government was settled out of court last month.
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