More miles of border fencing killed

MCALLEN, Texas (AP) - Legislators have killed a provision that would have required the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to build 300 new miles of pedestrian fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border by the end of next year.

The provision was stripped from the department's appropriations bill. The amendment, passed by the U.S. Senate in July, would have discounted the approximately 300 miles of vehicle barriers built along the border.

It also would have required that tall fencing to stop illegal immigrants on foot account for all of the nearly 700 miles of barriers the government promised to build.

U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint, a South Carolina Republican, sponsored the original amendment. The Government Accountability Office said about 633 miles of pedestrian and vehicle barriers had been completed on the border as of the end of June.