How Secure Is Our Southern Border?

Now some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine:

Feeling Good

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says the border with Mexico is more secure and it is time to change immigration law.

Napolitano says the Obama administration has completed the construction of 600 miles of border fence. But critics say the fencing is inadequate and incomplete. Others worry environmental laws are blocking construction of parts of the virtual fence of electronic surveillance and could create areas where border patrol agents cannot easily track illegal immigrants.

The Washington Times reports the National Park Service has tried to stop the Border Patrol from placing some surveillance towers on wilderness lands in parks along the border. Some agents have been required to pursue suspected illegals on horseback or even on foot, in order to avoid disturbing protected lands.

The Government Accountability Office blames environmental rules as part of the reason for the delay in completing the virtual fence until at least 2016. Napolitano says cracking down on illegal immigration actually helps the environment, since illegal crossovers lead to damaged lands.

Seeing Red

Updating a story we brought you Friday about Obama-related souvenirs in China, a CNN correspondent was detained by authorities in Shanghai for two hours Sunday, after holding up a T-shirt depicting President Obama dressed in a Red Army uniform.

When Emily Chang held up the shirt during a live report, she was approached by two Chinese guards. Chang told the The French Press Agency: "They scrambled towards us and tried to pry the shirt out of my hands. I didn't give in. there was a bit of yelling and quite a scuffle." She goes on to say, "They wanted our press cards, our passports, but most of all, they wanted the shirt."

The "Oba-Mao" shirts and trinkets had been hot souvenirs for months, but were banned ahead of the president's visit.

Head in the Clouds

Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez is going to war, with the clouds. Chavez says he will join with a team of Cuban scientists on flights to bomb clouds in hopes of creating rain to ease his country's severe drought.

Chavez says, according to Reuters: "I'm going in a plane; any cloud that crosses me, I'll zap it so that it rains." His government has been criticized for poor planning during the drought. Venezuela has imposed strict water and electricity rationing across the country.

Chavez's planned cloud bombing is basically seeding clouds with chemicals to produce rain. Meteorologist Paul Douglas with Conservation Minnesota says: "Tinkering with the weather is fraught with peril."

— Fox News Channel's Lanna Britt contributed to this report.