Lest we think that building a wall across the entire southern US border only affects the movement of people, Glenn Hurowitz, Senior Fellow at the Center for International Policy, reminds people of the impact the border fence will have on threatened species in the region.

Republican Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich continues to stake out his claim as the sole moderate on immigration in the GOP campaign. Politico reports that he is in favor of a legalization program that will allow "citizen boards" (similar to the draft boards of an earlier era) to determine whether undocumented immigrants deserve to stay in the US. He explicitly rejected a path to legalization. Gingrich is considered a favorite of those in the Tea Party and the candidate's more enlightened positions on immigration support the argument that not all those in the Tea Party are hardliners on immigration.