Just three miles north of
Arizona’s border with Mexico, the Coronado National Forest is
littered with the leavings of people on the run: empty plastic
water bottles, opened tuna fish cans, sweatshirts, jars of foot
powder. Near a scattered pack of playing cards, some turquoise
underwear lies in an undignified tangle.
A pair of small
pink Mary Janes, the heels squashed down, sprawl a few yards away.
Together, they are some of the remnants of hundreds of illegal
immigrants and drug smugglers who cross this mountainous landscape
every day. It’s hot and dry and the wind is a terrible nag, blowing
trash and red dirt around to no obvious end.
“Every
hundred yards you see this amount of stuff,” says Heiko Bornhoff, a
special agent with the U.S. Forest Service. “It’s just a mess.”
This week, the Senate is debating what to include in a
massive immigration reform bill. Most of the national discussion
has centered on the undocumented immigrants who live in the United
States and how to stem the flow of illegal traffic at the border.
Almost entirely missing from the discussion, however, is the impact
that the thousands of border crossers and their American pursuers
have on the landscape.
Since the Border Patrol
significantly closed down access to crossers in cities such as El
Paso, Texas, and San Diego, Calif., a decade ago, illegal
immigration has been funneled onto over 350 miles of public lands
along the Arizona and California border. The increased activity has
meant that wilderness areas and wildlife refuges are about as
untrammeled as a city park. Some argue that environmental damage is
a minor concern when measured against the cost of human lives and
global economics, but the harm to land and wildlife is obvious and
growing. Immigrants and Border Patrol agents have carved a maze of
trails and roads into the fragile desert sand, and according to a
2003 GAO report, “destroyed cactus and other sensitive vegetation,
including habitat for endangered species.”
Fire is
another concern, for as immigrants make their steady way across the
arid land, many will light small fires under trees for warmth, to
heat food or as a call for help. These fires aren’t Boy
Scout-caliber, with a ring of rocks to prevent cinders from
escaping. As the wind blows through long after the immigrants have
left, some smoldering fires can spring to life. Fires that spread
at the wrong time of year — when humidity is low — are
of high intensity and have destroyed Douglas Fir and oak forests
where the endangered Mexican spotted owl survives. After fires like
this, it takes hundreds of years for the forest to regenerate, says
Glenn Frederick, a Coronado Forest biologist based in Sierra Vista,
Ariz.
The cat-and-mouse activity at the border is also
limiting scientific research. Frederick and other biologists say
they have had to change the ways they study populations of species
because it’s dangerous to be out in the field alone or at night.
Actions of the Border Patrol add to the problem.
According to a report released last spring by the nonprofit
Defenders of Wildlife, for the last two years Border Patrol agents
have been allowed to ride off-road vehicles anywhere they want
across public lands. They can also build roads and backcountry
“enforcement” camps in wilderness areas. The Border Patrol never
completed analyses for this unfettered freedom on public lands as
required under the Endangered Species Act or the National
Environmental Policy Act. Moreover, legislation passed last year
allows the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security to
exempt the Border Patrol from all federal, state and local
environmental laws when constructing walls, fences and roads along
the border.
An amendment proposed by Wyoming Sen. Craig
Thomas, R, to the immigration reform bill currently under debate
takes some steps towards protecting our borderlands. Agents would
undergo training in how to minimize the effects of security
operations on the landscape, border monitoring would be increased
for sensitive areas, and the agency as a whole would be required to
come up with a strategy for protecting natural resources.
Rebecca Clarren is a contributor to Writers on the Range,
a service of High Country News (hcn.org). She
writes about labor and immigration issues in Portland,
Oregon.
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