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From: (b) (6)

To: COLBURN, RONALD S; (b) (6)
SELF, JEFFREY D
Subject: FW: Feds drop border fence suit against UT-Brownsville
Date: Thursday, March 20, 2008 10:04:35 AM

From: (b) (6)

Sent: Thursday, March 20, 2008 9:18 AM
To: (b) (6)

Subject: Feds drop border fence suit against UT-Brownsville

March 19, 2008, 6:03PM

Feds drop border fence suit against UT-Brownsville

Judge orders the government and school officials to work out alternatives to barrier
By CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN
Associated Press

BROWNSVILLE — The U.S. government dismissed its border fence condemnation lawsuit
against the University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College on Wednesday
and agreed to explore alternatives to a fence with school officials.

The agreement was reached just hours before a hearing was to begin in federal court.

It is no guarantee that the university's golf course and the rest of the threatened 160 acres of
campus will not some day be on the Mexican side of a 15-foot fence, but the dismissal order
requires the two sides work together.

The government has sued more than 50 South Texas landowners this year for temporary
access to survey for the border fence. Many have complained that the access requested was
overly broad and sought similar restrictions, but the university is the first to achieve it.

Upon signing the order, U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen said he hoped the agreement
could be a model for other property owners, specifically the Rio Grande City Consolidated
Independent School District, which shared similar concerns about disruptions to its campus
and impact on its students during a hearing before Hanen on Monday.

Hanen has handled dozens of the border fence condemnation lawsuits. While siding
consistently with the government, he has always urged more cooperation and outreach from
federal officials.

Outside the courthouse, Juliet Garcia, president of UTB-TSC, said some of her intent in
rejecting government access before reaching this agreement was to "plow the field" for other
property owners.

Under the agreement, the government wins its long-sought access to the campus for six
months. The university gets a promise from the government to explore alternatives "to a
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physical barrier" with the university and to get school consent before even mowing a blade of
grass.

Barry Burgdorf, vice chancellor and general counsel for the University of Texas System, said
the university will invest its own resources in developing alternatives to the fence. Neither
Burgdorf nor the court order specify what those alternatives might be.

School officials had already proposed an alternative location for the fence, which the
Department of Homeland Security rejected, according to court records. Negotiations that
began Tuesday afternoon in Brownsville and resumed Wednesday morning were their first
productive conversations, Burgdorf said.

The fence as originally proposed would cut through the southern part of the growing
university's campus along the top of a levee. Government officials had said they would install
a gate where a road now leads to the golf course, but the school feared it would effectively
funnel illegal immigrants right onto campus while leaving the golf course and historic Fort
Brown in a no man's land.

The University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College, a two-year school,
share the campus less than a mile from the Rio Grande. The schools have grown rapidly in
recent years and have a combined enrollment of more than 17,000 students.

Garcia had been one of the border fence's most outspoken opponents. The surrounding
community of Brownsville and its sister city of Matamoros across the river are so seamlessly
connected that the fence struck many as a blunt instrument conceived by those with little
knowledge of the area.

The government has consistently argued that it is under pressure because Congress mandated
that there be 670 miles of fence along the Mexican border by the end of the year. So far, less
than half is built.

Burgdorf said the "deadline" is meaningless because Congress did not specify where fencing
had to be built. In court filings, the schools called it "arbitrary and capricious."

"If you don't build three miles here, you can build three miles somewhere else," Burgdorf
said.