The galvanized steel grating is to be “so sharp it will shear off toes,” according to the government contractor.

Plans for the fence, dubbed the “tortilla curtain” by its opponents, were announced October 23 by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). In addition to the razor-sharp grating, the fiendish device will be set in a concrete base to prevent tunneling.

Fences are initially planned for two locations: between El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juarez; and the San Diego-Tijuana border. Total cost for the two projects is estimated at $3.5 million.

In addition to brutality by INS cops, Mexican workers will now face a further risk in trying to escape Mexico’s subpoverty wages and 60 percent unemployment.

The fence is part of Washington’s attempts to blame U.S. economic problems on “aliens.” Congress recently approved $1.5 million for a fence on the Arizona border and $900,000 to repair the existing fence near San Diego. It also voted to allow INS and Border Patrol agents to search vehicles without warrants.

A Los Angeles Times dispatch noted that the proposed new barriers “are steps along a technological road that could one day seal the entire border.”  
 
November 9, 1953
Twenty-five years ago, on Nov. 15, 1928, The Militant was born. It is a difficult job to publish a fighting socialist newspaper in the richest capitalist country in the world.

But it is precisely in this country that the powerful ideas of Marxism are most necessary. The Militant provided these ideas to the workers in continuous publication for over a quarter of a century. This was a historic achievement.

It would have been impossible without the valiant Militant Army. They are the pluggers who have brought The Militant to the picket lines in the period of stormy labor struggles.

They faced the cops, the fascists, the American Legionnaires, the Jim Crow racist mobs, the company thugs—and got the paper to the workers rain or shine.

They braved the gangs of Stalinist hooligans, who harassed and beat our distributors in the early years, and the goons of the labor bureaucracy.

They are the people who got subscriptions in house-to-house campaigns, in the factories, in the unions and sold the paper on the streets.

We salute the Militant Army on our 25th birthday. This army will swell its ranks. It will send its patrols to every corner of the country wherever labor works and fights. Join the Militant Army. Subscribe. Get subs from your friends and shopmates. Get the truth to the workers. Only the socialist truth can set us free.  
 
 
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