Richard Marosi
L.A. Times
February 15, 2010
Reporting from San Diego – The border barrier dips and curves, zigs and zags, hugging the mountain’s contours like a slimmed-down version of the Great Wall of China.
[efoods]Among the costliest stretch of fencing ever built on the U.S.-Mexico border, the 3.6-mile wall of steel completed last fall is meant to block trafficking routes over Otay Mountain, just east of San Diego.
People seeking to enter the country illegally have hiked the scrub-covered, tarantula-infested peak for years, trying to get to roads leading to San Diego.
But critics are bewildered. Why, they ask, would people determined to scale a rugged, 3,500-foot peak be deterred by an 18-foot-high fence? They also point out that the Department of Homeland Security deemed it unnecessary in 2006.
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