The never-ending saga of the border fence

The Department of Homeland Security has stopped bothering to pretend it is building the border fence in Texas, instead handing off the issue to the Obama administration. Only 3.3 miles out of 110 planned for Texas had even been built up to this point. With any luck, the same will play out along the rest of the border.

Obama has said some fence might be necessary, but that it would only be built after consultation and agreement with local authorities, which are most often against it. So hopefully some common sense will be injected into the situation.

However, this does not necessarily mean reform. Tom Barry at The Center for International Policy (who writes the blog Border Lines) notes that Rahm Emmanuel supports reform in principle, but deems it a "third rail" and so will likely try to convince Obama not to pursue it. I would also add that immigration is never listed as higher than third or fourth in a list of issues voters are most concerned about--the economy and Iraq dominate the agenda.