Border securityBill allowing Border Patrol activity within 100 miles of border unnecessary, damaging: Environmentalists

The U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee last Wednesday approved S.750, a bill which would waive all laws for any Border Patrol activity within 100 miles of Arizona’s border with Mexico. The Center for Biological Diversity says that the bill, marketed as an improvement for Border Patrol’s access to public lands, is more about overreach and overkill than access, and will result in more harm to U.S. public lands, including those far from the border.

Christian Ramírez, director of the Southern Border Communities Coalition, said about the bill’s approval: “There is simply no need for S.750. The Department of Homeland Security has repeatedly disclaimed the idea that such legislation is required to further border security. Moreover, the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee has not held a single hearing to examine impacts on the environment and Native American communities or to build a record justifying such a drastic measure. What any border bill should include are reforms to Customs and Border Protection to ensure greater oversight and accountability, none of which are included in S.750.”

“Border Patrol already has unfettered access to protected federal public lands along the border,” said Dan Millis, borderlands program coordinator for the Grand Canyon Chapter of the Sierra Club. “In fact, Border Patrol currently has more access to the border and surrounding lands than the public.” Under a 2006 interagency agreement, Border Patrol is allowed to drive off-road in designated roadless wilderness without prior permission. No other entity, not even a land manager, is allowed to commit this violation of the Wilderness Act.

In 2013 Sierra Club produced Too Many Tracks, a three-minute video documenting thousands of miles of renegade roads and unauthorized vehicle routes on Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge and Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, both in Arizona. “Border Patrol’s off-road driving, tire dragging and ATV use in designated roadless wilderness has left an immense scar on the landscape. McCain’s bill would expand the waiver of law, and thus, the environmental damage, 100 miles from the border. Border Patrol’s environmental impact is much more intense than any damage caused by border-crossers,” said Millis.

“The Border Patrol has not asked for this authority and has said repeatedly that they don’t need it,” said Randy Serraglio, Southwest conservation advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity. “They have full access to public lands and are working with land managers to enhance border security efforts while minimizing impacts to those lands. For someone who purports to represent the state of Arizona, Senator McCain seems remarkably ignorant about what’s really going on here.”

“Imagine this: Border Patrol decides to construct a surveillance tower dozens of feet tall, armed with cameras and motion sensors, in Saguaro National Park — Tucson’s backyard gem — with no public consultation,” said Millis. “It demonstrates the overreach and overkill of waiving laws 100 miles inland. That’s what McCain’s bill does.”

The Center contends that hundreds of miles of walls, roads, and other infrastructure have already been constructed without regard for the rule of law under a waiver provision of the Real ID Act, which passed into law ten years ago this month (11 May 2005). As a result Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area, and other Arizona borderlands nature preserves have experienced flooding, wildlife habitat destruction, and other damage in the ensuing decade. “S.750 would expand on this damaging waiver, including public lands up to 100 miles from Arizona’s border,” the Center says.

Forty-one environmental and human rights organizations sent a letter last Tuesday asking senators to oppose the bill.