Work Begins on Controversial San Diego Border Fence

Construction crews have launched work on a controversial section of the US-Mexico border fence near San Diego, AP reports. The Smuggler's Gulch canyon will be filled with dirt and a fence built at a cost of $16 million a mile. Critics charge the fence is no longer vital and the work will cause serious environmental damage.

Smuggler's Gulch was a major crossing point for illegal immigrants in the '90s but a massive Border Patrol crackdown pushed traffic to more remote areas."It's crazy," said the director of a Tijuana human rights center. "I don't see the justification to spend $60 million on an area that's no longer an important crossing." (More Tijuana stories.)