A false choice on border security
Protecting nation doesn’t require destruction of natural resources
The U.S. Customs and Border Patrol plans to sidestep an environmental impact study on a section of the proposed border wall that would wall off most of the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge in Texas. According to news reports, the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) plans to invoke a provision of the 2005 REAL ID Act to waive environmental laws. Between 2007 and 2009, environmental laws were waived to expedite much of the construction of the nearly 700 miles of existing border fencing.
Discussions about the U.S.-Mexico border frequently set up a false choice between security and environmental protection. Our research shows that America cannot have one without the other. Interagency initiatives between Border Patrol, Homeland Security and federal public land managers are working to protect our national security and our natural resources.
We have seen strides in cooperation between federal agencies along the area we study in Arizona, the state with the most public lands along the border. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, a spectacular borderlands environment and UNESCO biosphere reserve. Once considered too dangerous to fully open to the public — in 2011, a park ranger was shot and killed by a known drug smuggler — today the park is experiencing a boom in day visitors and family campers.
Organ Pipe staff now work closely with the Border Patrol to combat drug activity. Border Patrol worked with the park to plan and fund ecological restoration of areas that had been degraded by border crossers and agents on patrol. Roads no longer needed have been closed, new signage installed, and vegetation replanted. A memorandum of understanding among the
departments of Homeland Security, the Interior and Agriculture states that any interagency conflicts about land management on the border should be resolved at the lowest level possible — by the local agency staff on the ground. That agreement was essential to guiding the success at Organ Pipe.
Every parcel of public land is unique. Solutions to protect it while also making it less hospitable for illegal activity will also be unique — far better developed by people on the ground than by bureaucrats or politicians in Washington. Plans to bypass environmental officials on the Texas wall construction fly in the face of this principle.
Organ Pipe and Border Patrol officials worked together to strike a balance between the need for undisturbed wilderness and the legitimate need for security access within the park. In a reopened Organ Pipe, there are both more Border Patrol Agents and more park staff devoted to law enforcement. Their cooperation makes the park safer for everyone.
We have seen the benefits of cooperation elsewhere. Environmental officials can identify and eradicate invasive brush before it provides a screen for people hiding from authorities. They can identify patterns of erosion that would endanger fencing or even a solid wall. Border Patrol can work with land managers to target routes where trafficking is heavy, but without compromising important ecological or archaeological resources. These conversations happen routinely at the local level, where the extent of illegal crossing and the remedies to it are best understood.
It is disappointing to us, as people who study and live in the region, to hear pundits say our country has no control over its own borders. Border Patrol apprehensions of people entering the U.S. illegally have declined 53 percent over the past three years, according to DHS. “The early results show that enforcement matters, deterrence matters and that comprehensive immigration enforcement can make an impact,” then-DHS Secretary John Kelly said.
Do people still cross our borders illegally? Yes, everyday. Is drug-running across our border still a problem? Yes. Is the region utterly lawless? The families picnicking at Organ Pipe do not seem to think so.
We need to credit federal agencies for the success they have had and refrain from Washington-based dictates that endanger those successes. Current laws have fostered robust interagency cooperation, making the U.S.-Mexico border safer than it has been in a decade and protecting its natural and scenic resources. If the laws change, that cooperation will be impossible. We will lose important ecological information that has helped the Border Patrol. And, we will erode years of good will between Border Patrol agents and land managers. Ignoring the environmental health of our border region does not solve any problems, but it will create many more.
Baldwin is an assistant professor at the University of Arizona’s School of Government and Public Policy, where Emerson is a professor of practice. López Hoffman is an associate professor at the School of Natural Resources and Environment and associate research professor at the Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy of the University of Arizona.