Word: townes
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...track of it all. Even agents of the newly reorganized Customs and Border Protection (CBP) department find themselves coming upon sections they've never seen before. The work is less advanced in New Mexico and stalled in Texas, where fierce local opposition has delayed construction--a coalition of border-town mayors and chambers of commerce has sued DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff, alleging he is trying to seize land at inadequate prices. But Texas already has more than 1,200 miles (almost 2,000 km) of well-marked border in the form of the Rio Grande...
Then came the fence builders. Now a formidable triple barrier runs through town: three fences, the tallest 20 ft. (6 m) high, separated by floodlit corridors watched 24/7 by beefed-up patrols. Agent Eric Anderson, a three-year veteran, recalled a day in his rookie year when Yuma Sector nabbed 800 illegal aliens. "Some days now, we see zero coming through here," he said. East of San Luis, the triple fence becomes a double line, then a single tall fence, until it reaches the rugged Gila mountains. Beyond the range, the fence resumes, but now it's in the deep...
There's a lot of fence going up here in central Arizona too, but conditions are less favorable along this 264-mile (425 km) stretch. In the sector's largest border town, Nogales, homes and businesses crowd so close to the border that nothing like the triple barrier in San Luis can be built unless buildings are bought and knocked down. Tucson Sector also has more paved roads through its desert, making it easier for walkers to reach pickup points. And there are more hamlets along its border. Smuggling is a major part of the local economy in Arizona towns...
...hear many complaints about boredom from Tucson Sector agents. Lukeville is getting a double barrier, Dart explained, but "as fast as they put it up, on the southern side they take plasma torches and cut holes." There's a vehicle barrier south of the tiny town of Menninger's, but drug smugglers use hydraulic ramps to boost cars over for a quick dash into town. In the rolling pasturelands east of Nogales, the fence is a so-called Normandy barrier of crisscrossing railroad iron. Smugglers like to cut this fence with torches, then carefully put everything back in place...
...last year. Some adults dismissed the statistic as a blip. Others blamed hit movies like Juno and Knocked Up for glamorizing young unwed mothers. But principal Joseph Sullivan knows at least part of the reason there's been such a spike in teen pregnancies in this Massachusetts fishing town. School officials started looking into the matter as early as October, after an unusual number of girls began filing into the school clinic to find out if they were pregnant. By May, several students had returned multiple times to get pregnancy tests, and on hearing the results, "some girls seemed more...