Suffer the Children

By Scott Nicol

We are confronted with a refugee crisis, as thousands of children, mostly from Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala, run for their lives, coming to the United States in the hope of finding safe haven.

Children have been crossing the southern border for years, skirting $3 billion worth of border walls and dodging the Border Patrol, but as violence in these three countries has reached epidemic levels the number of refugee children has overwhelmed federal agencies and become impossible for the press or the public to continue to ignore.

Honduras has the world’s highest murder rate: in 2011, 92 people out of every thousand residents were murdered.  El Salvador ranked second, with 70 murders per 1,000 people.  Guatemala came in fifth.  For comparison, the U.S. murder rate that year was 5 per 1,000. 

Last March the United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) released a report, titled “Children on the Run,” on the underage refugees streaming out of Central America.  UNHCR interviewed 404 children who had been apprehended at the U.S. border, and most said that they were fleeing gang violence.

A seventeen year old boy from Honduras said that, “My grandmother is the one who told me to leave. She said: ‘If you don’t join, the gang will shoot you. If you do, the rival gang or the cops will shoot you. But if you leave, no one will shoot you.’”

A fifteen year old girl from El Salvador told the UNHCR, “I am here because I was threatened by the gang. One of them “liked” me. Another gang member told my uncle that he should get me out of there because the guy who liked me was going to do me harm. In El Salvador they take young girls, rape them and throw them in plastic bags. My uncle told me it wasn’t safe for me to stay there and I should go to the United States.”

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recently released a map that shows the point of origin for Central American kids who arrived at the border in the first few months of this year.  By far the largest number, more than 2,500, came from San Pedro Sula, the most violent city in the most violent country on the planet. 

The text on the DHS map says, "We analyzed these locations to determine the factors pushing child migration to the US Southwest Border. […] Salvadoran and Honduran children… come from extremely violent regions where they probably perceive the risk of traveling alone to the US preferable to remaining at home."

Notably absent from both the DHS document and the UNHCR report is a false belief on the part of these kids that United States laws had changed to allow them to stay here.  Republicans have made this a key talking point, a way to blame President Obama for the current crisis. 

In a recent FOX news op-ed, for example, Senator John Cornyn wrote, “Two years ago, the president stood in the Rose Garden and announced a unilateral change to U.S. immigration policy regarding children. Between that policy change and his broader refusal to uphold our immigration laws, he created a powerful incentive for children to cross into the United States illegally.”

Like the false idea that border walls stop desperate migrants in their tracks, it may sound plausible, but there is nothing to back Cornyn’s claim up.  The children interviewed by the United Nations described fleeing for their lives, not responding to a rumor that the United States’ convoluted immigration laws had become more favorable. 

What’s more, nearby countries other than the United States – Mexico, Belize, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama – have seen a 432% increase in applications for asylum from Hondurans, Salvadorans, and Guatemalans over the last five years.  Nothing that President Obama may or may not have said caused that.

The politicization of this crisis that Senator Cornyn’s statement epitomizes may doom these children.  While both parties call the situation a “crisis,” Republicans shy away from using the word “refugee” to describe children fleeing violence.  Their knee-jerk response to any situation on the border is to call for more militarization, starting with the mobilization of the National Guard. 

Governor Perry has announced that $1.3 million per week will be spent to send in the Department of Public Safety.  The DPS sniper that shot and killed Central American migrants from a helicopter, and the Highway Patrol speedboats with machine guns mounted on their prows that prowl the Rio Grande, have had no discernible impact on the number of people who come across the border, but in Perry’s mind it is important to look tough when faced with an influx of desperate children.

Democrats, from Representative Pelosi to border Representative Filemon Vela, have been more willing to face the fact that the children fleeing violence in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala are refugees who deserve better than being locked in a bus garage or being forced to sleep on a concrete slab.

But President Obama seems unclear on the idea of refugees.  One the one hand, the President has pledged millions to assist these countries in shoring up their courts and combating gangs.  At the same time he is asking Congress for greater authority to speed up deportations.  Far from compassionate, making it harder for a child to plead his or her case before an immigration judge would inevitably cause many to suffer and die as they are thrown back into the grip of their persecutors, their tormentors, and ultimately their murderers.

On Thursday members of the U.S. House of Representatives will hold a field hearing in McAllen to discuss the refugees who are coming across our southern border.  Hopefully the assembled members will set aside the election year desire to blame the other political party and score political points, and will instead focus on the suffering of children who have traveled more than a thousand miles, and who have endured unspeakable abuse during their journeys, in a desperate effort to simply survive.

These children are not aliens, they are not invaders, they are refugees. 

If we reject them, if we deport them, if we put them on planes and send them back to the countries that they fled, or if the only response that we can muster is to line the border with more “boots on the ground” and machine guns pointing south, we will show ourselves to be no more humane than the gangs whose brutality prompted their flight. 

A New Wall Through El Paso’s Historic Heart

By Scott Nicol

The condemnation suit has been filed and construction crews are staging.  Another section of border wall will soon stand beside the Rio Grande. 

El Paso’s new border wall will tear through the city’s historic heart.  It will stand upon the exact spot where Don Juan de Oñate first crossed the Rio Grande in 1598, and New Spain established a road from Mexico City to Santa Fe long before the founding of either Mexico or the United States.  Oñate’s crossing was called “El Paso del Rio de Norte,” the Pass Across the River of the North, and over time it grew into the city of El Paso.

The new El Paso wall will be added to the patchwork of barriers called for by the Secure Fence Act.  Those walls have proved to be largely ineffective at stopping either drug smugglers or migrants looking for work.  Customs and Border Protection spends millions of dollars repairing thousands of breaches each year, and if a crosser forgets to pack a saw the border wall takes less than a minute to climb. 

But efficacy is not the point, and never has been.  Border walls are nothing more than symbols, props for politicians to use as a backdrop in political ads.  Whether or not they actually stop anyone is irrelevant –appearance is all that matters. 

So far as Customs and Border Protection is concerned the actual damage that will be inflicted on a site of tremendous historical significance such as the Oñate crossing is also irrelevant.  Because the Bush administration used the REAL ID Act to waive 36 laws construction can move quickly, with no need to protect historic or archaeological features.  The Antiquities Act, National Historic Preservation Act, Archaeological Resources Protection Act, and other laws that might safeguard our cultural heritage have been swept aside, along with laws that protect our environment and human health.

Thanks to the waiver other border walls have caused severe erosion in the Otay Mountain Wilderness Area, flooding in the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, and the fragmentation of endangered species habitat in the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge. 

There is no reason to think that this time Customs and Border Protection will act responsibly.

The stated intent of the REAL ID Act’s waiver provision was to allow for the “expeditious construction” of border walls and patrol roads that might otherwise be slowed down by compliance with laws.  But it has been 7 years since the Secure Fence Act was passed.  Construction was not delayed by lawsuits; Customs and Border Protection simply did not think that this section was a priority.  Now that they have gotten around to building it there is no rush, they just don’t want to be bothered with obeying our nation’s laws.

No agency should be above the rule of law, and it is beyond ridiculous to allow a law enforcement agency to violate laws with impunity. 

El Paso’s U.S. Representative, Democrat Beto O’rourke, and Republican U.S. Senator John Cornyn have called upon Customs and Border Protection to rethink this section of wall, to reach out to El Paso residents and listen to the opinions of those on the ground as to whether this wall will be of benefit to the community or if instead it will be, as Brownsville’s Bishop Flores described Texas’ border walls, another “scar” disfiguring border communities.  Customs and Border Protection has refused to listen to border residents, likely because they know that those who will live with this scar through the heart of their community would reject it.

Having been given such tremendous power when Senator Cornyn and his fellow members of Congress voted for the REAL ID Act (in 2005 O’rourke was not yet a member of Congress, so could neither support nor oppose the bill), Customs and Border Protection can ignore the law and lawmakers.  They have a long track record of condemning the property of local landowners and municipalities and erecting walls in the face of local protests. 

Customs and Border Protection should commit to upholding all of our nation’s laws, not just those that it finds convenient.  If it is impossible to erect border walls without violating 36 federal laws those walls should not be built. 

This article originally ran in the Rio Grande Guardian on November 30, 2013.
www.riograndeguardian.com

Security First?

by Scott Nicol

The “gang of eight” U.S. Senators, four Democrats and four Republicans, have released a set of principles that they see as the basis for comprehensive immigration reform legislation.  The fact that they are trying to resolve this issue is a positive step, and has the potential to allow millions of people to finally live normal lives, free of fear and exploitation.  But a key component of their plan calls into question whether that promise will ever be realized.

Immigrants’ advocates have long held that a “pathway to citizenship” must be part of any immigration reform plan, allowing those currently in the United States without papers to earn U.S. citizenship. 

Conservative icon Ronald Reagan agreed with this, saying, "I believe in the idea of amnesty for those who have put down roots and lived here, even though sometime back they may have entered illegally."   Today anti-immigrant groups spit out the term “amnesty” as a curse, and many in the current crop of Republican politicians (Texas’ U.S. Senators prominent among them) use it to slander the very idea of allowing the undocumented to become citizens.

Though Cornyn and Cruz present the rejection of earned citizenship as a principled ideological stance, many conservative pundits have pointed out that Hispanics tend to vote for Democrats – 71% voted for Barack Obama – so allowing the 11 million or so mostly, but not entirely, Hispanic undocumented immigrants currently in the U.S. to vote might hurt Republicans in future elections.

Alienating Hispanic voters is costing Republicans elections now, but adding more Hispanic voters could hurt Republicans in the future.  What are they to do?

The answer lies in the “gang of eight” principles. 

The recently unveiled framework makes border security a prerequisite for the issuance of green cards to undocumented immigrants.  After that they could apply for full citizenship, going to the “back of the line.”

Of course the length of that line depends on what country they come from since each nation is assigned a quota; whether they are related by blood or marriage to U.S. citizens; and their income and skills.  For a Mexican national with no family in the United States, no money or special skills, the line that they will be going to the back of is over a century long.

But until the border is declared secure, that hundred-plus-year clock will not start ticking.

The principles released by the “gang of eight” do not define a secure border, so it is impossible to know how many years, how many new Border Patrol agents, how many more drones, how many miles of new border wall, it might take to get there. 

The Senate plan calls for a commission made up of “governors, attorneys general, and community leaders living along the Southwest border“ to determine when the border has been secured. 

Immigrants’ advocates cried foul at the notion that Texas governor Rick Perry and Arizona’s Jan Brewer could hold the citizenship of millions hostage indefinitely by refusing to declare the border secure. 

Perry manages to find money for Highway Patrol speedboats with machine guns mounted on the front to patrol the Rio Grande at the same time as he cuts $4.5 billion from Texas’ schools.  Brewer has committed Arizona’s scarce financial resources to defending SB 1070, the state law intended to make immigrants’ lives so hellish that they “self-deport.” 

Neither are particularly objective in their assessment of the border.

The gang seems to have viewed sacrificing the border to get a bill as a given, and they sold us out so quickly that it never occurred to them that making border security a prerequisite could put citizenship in permanent limbo.

Democratic gang members have responded to the criticism with assurances that the Department of Homeland Security would develop a new, workable definition of a secure border tied to concrete metrics rather than the delusions of Perry and Brewer.  They now say the commission will be strictly advisory.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is certainly further form the lunatic fringe than the governors of Texas and Arizona, but the Department of Homeland Security has a terrible record on the border.

Upon taking office Napolitano refused to halt the condemnation of land and construction of border walls in South Texas and elsewhere.  Early last year her underlings finally succeeded in pressuring the US section of the International Boundary and Water Commission to approve walls in the floodplain at Roma, Rio Grande City, and Los Ebanos, despite the risk to residents on both sides of the river and the damage that the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge and Roma Bluffs World Birding Center will suffer.

Last week Secretary Napolitano spoke in El Paso, ranked the safest big city in the United States for the third year running, and declared that the border is more secure than ever, and that the idea that immigration reform should be held hostage to border security “suffers from a fundamental flaw.” 

Her argument is backed by the numbers.  Border Patrol apprehensions are at a forty year low, and the Pew Research Center has found that net migration from Mexico is effectively at zero, with as many people heading south as north.

So why has her agency continued to push for border walls?  Politics, of course.

At the beginning of her tenure halting border wall construction would have opened up the newly elected President Obama to attacks in the press.  The “gang of eight” likewise assume that throwing the border under the bus is a political necessity to get a bill through Congress, so they do it without hesitation.

Immigration reform should not be held hostage to “border security”, whether it is Perry and Brewer or Napolitano who decide on what that means.  There will always be conflicting political needs that will prevent the honest assessment and agreement that would allow reform to move forward.

When the Senators draft their bill in the coming weeks border security must not be a prerequisite for anything else.  Otherwise real reform will always be just over the horizon, one more agent, one more drone, one more wall away.

Politics is an abstraction, but the actual border consists of real lives and real landscapes.  We are not a bargaining chip for politicians who have never dipped a toe in the Rio Grande, walked a trail in the LRGV National Wildlife Refuge, or looked a South Texas citrus grower in the eye. 

Don't Throw the Border Under the Bus

by Scott Nicol

Congress will soon take up Comprehensive Immigration Reform.  That could be a good thing, if it normalizes the status of millions who are now forced to live in the shadows; reduces the number of immigrants who cross, and sometimes die, in the desert; and allows some of the $18 billion that is spent annually on immigration enforcement to be used for other things. 

But if history is any guide it could also mean a ramping up of border enforcement, with billions more wasted on border walls.

In 2006, the last time Congress made a serious attempt at Comprehensive Immigration Reform, hundreds of miles of border wall were included in competing House and Senate bills.  The two bills were never reconciled and therefore never made it to the President’s desk. 

Instead the provisions calling for walls along the southern border were passed by both houses as a stand-alone bill - the Secure Fence Act.  650 miles of border wall were eventually built, tearing through communities from San Diego to Brownsville and ecosystems from the Otay Mountain Wilderness Area to the Sabal Palms Audubon Sanctuary.

The idea that walls would halt potential crossers in their tracks proved to be more fantasy than reality.  The Congressional Research Service reported that walls near San Diego had “little impact on overall apprehensions.”  Even the Border Patrol said that “The border fence is a speed bump in the desert.”

While walls have not reduced the number of immigrants who enter the U.S., they have caused the number of border crossers who perish in southern deserts each year to more than double.  That is because border walls do not stop people from entering the United States, they only reroute them. 

Confronted with an 18 foot high wall near San Diego or El Paso or Brownsville desperate immigrants do not turn around and go home, they go around it.  Rather than crossing in safer urban areas thousands come through rugged mountains and deserts.  As a result more than 5,000 have died from dehydration and exposure, and it is estimated that thousands of bodies lie undiscovered.

Walls and other enforcement measures have also taken a heavy toll on the environment. 

California’s Otay Mountain Wilderness Area saw 530,000 cubic yards of rock blasted from the mountainsides tumble into the Tijuana River.  In Arizona the border walls that cross washes and streams in the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument have caused severe erosion and flooding.  Walls built in New Mexico’s Playas Valley block the movement of one of the last wild herds of bison, whose range straddles the U.S. – Mexico border.  And in Texas the walls that slice through the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge have fragmented habitat that is critical for the survival of endangered ocelots.

Following the recent election, in which some (but unfortunately not all) of the loudest immigrant-bashers suffered defeat and more than 70% of Hispanic voters rejected Mitt Romney, many politicians have decided that it is in their best interest to pass some version of immigration reform. 

The big concern is that we could see history repeat itself.

Press reports describe the coming bill as mirroring past legislation, pairing work visas and a pathway to citizenship with more border enforcement. 

Once again the border may be sacrificed in a doomed attempt to get conservatives to accept comprehensive legislation.

The idea that members of Congress who have called for making the lives of immigrants so hellish that they “self-deport”, or who voted just last summer to waive federal laws within 100 miles of both borders for all Border Patrol activities, will now support humane immigration legislation is unrealistic.  Sticking walls in the bill will not change that.

Instead, if walls and further border enforcement are allowed in this year’s legislation we run the risk of a repeat of 2006, when hundreds of miles of border walls were the only part of the immigration bill to make it to the president’s desk.

Those of us who live on the border have already seen too much of the enforcement side of that equation.  Last year the federal government spent more on immigration enforcement than the budgets of the FBI, Secret Service, Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. Marshal Service, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives combined.

Enough.

Members of Congress who were sent to DC to represent the border need to fight for their constituents, but so far they have been silent.  With much of Arizona and California already walled off, Representatives Vela, Hinojosa, Cuellar, Gallego, and O’Rourke could all see new walls tear through their districts if they don’t make sure that border walls are kept out of the bill, but none have told us what (if anything) they plan to do about it. 

This is a critically important piece of legislation for border communities, and border legislators should take the lead in writing it.  That is their job, after all.  Sitting silently in the back of the room and hoping for the best is not going to cut it this time.

Congress needs to come up with a clean bill, dealing with immigration without further militarizing the borderlands.  No new border walls, no more pork for military contractors; instead we as a nation must address our dysfunctional immigration system in a way that is both effective and humane. 

We need immigration reform that doesn’t throw the border under the bus.

Broken Promises and Border Walls Push Jaguarundi to the Brink

by Scott Nicol

 

The long, low body moves in a permanent crouch as the lithe cat glides through the shaded underbrush.  Not much larger than a house cat, but with a lean, dark body more closely resembling a weasel’s than a tabby’s, the jaguarundi stalks small prey, birds and rodents mostly, in the thornscrub where the Gulf Coast meets the Rio Grande.

 

Even before farms, towns, and homes devoured 95% of the Lower Rio Grande Valley’s native habitat the jaguarundi’s secretive habits meant it was rarely seen.  Now there is scant evidence as to how many cats remain, though they are occasionally spotted.   In 2009 there were two sightings by Texas Parks and Wildlife game wardens, though they were officially classified as unconfirmed in the absence of a photograph or carcass.

Loss of habitat and the fragmentation of what forested areas remain is the biggest obstacle to jaguarundi maintaining a healthy population, according to a draft recovery plan recently prepared by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.  If a patch of forest is too small, it may not contain enough food, and if patches are too far apart or split by roads or other barriers jaguarundi may not have sufficient territory to survive.  Isolated animals may also be cut off from potential mates, which can lead to inbreeding within a small population.

Ocelots, a slightly larger wild cat whose markings resemble a jaguar’s, inhabit the same South Texas territory and face the same problems as the jaguarundi.  Ocelots are better studied, with radio collared individuals in Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge.  They regularly pause in front of motion-activated cameras there and in the nearby Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge.  Their total population in the United States is certainly less than 100, and possibly much lower.  Even fewer jaguarundi remain, which has led to both being listed under the Endangered Species Act.

The best way to save both species, according to U.S. Fish and Wildlife, is to provide them with enough habitat to forage and find mates.  The draft recovery plan calls for the purchase of land to replace and reconnect the native forest that they need, creating the wildlife corridor that the river-hugging refuge was originally meant to be.  But with the never-ending “fiscal cliff” crisis and calls to butcher the budgets of federal agencies like U.S. Fish and Wildlife they will be hard pressed to find the necessary funds.

When border walls were erected in South Texas, they repeatedly sliced through the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife refuge, fragmenting habitat that had been purchased specifically for ocelots and jaguarundi.  Humans have had no problem climbing border walls, with or without a homemade ladder, but for a small cat that has not evolved thumbs an 18 foot high steel wall is insurmountable. 

 

In 2008, after the Department of Homeland Security waived the Endangered Species Act and more than thirty other laws so that Customs and Border Protection could build border walls they prepared a so-called “Environmental Stewardship Plan” meant, they said, to demonstrate their continued commitment to the environment.  To address the fragmentation of the Lower Rio Grande National Wildlife Refuge and the loss of endangered species habitat the plan stated that Customs and Border Protection would provide U.S. Fish and Wildlife with the means to purchase 4,600 acres of land to reconnect sections of the refuge that were separated by walls.  These properties would be purchased from willing sellers, because the South Texas refuge complex refuses to condemn land and earn the enmity of its neighbors, in contrast to Customs and Border Protection, who ultimately carried out more than 400 condemnations to build border walls.

In the nearly five years since Customs and Border Protection made that promise how much have they delivered? 

None. 

Not one acre, not one foot, not one inch.

It is not as though Customs and Border Protection is strapped for cash.  A report issued this month found that the federal government throws more money at immigration enforcement than it provides to the FBI, Secret Service, Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. Marshal Service, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives combined.  Somewhere in the $18 billion pot of cash that immigration enforcement agencies, Customs and Border Protection prominent among them, were swimming in in 2012 surely they could find a few dollars to buy a few acres and fulfill their overdue commitment.

Now Customs and Border Protection wants to build more miles of border wall in South Texas, tearing through Roma, Rio Grande City and Los Ebanos as well as further stretches of the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge.  In addition to the further fragmentation of ocelot and jaguarundi habitat that this would bring, these walls would stand in the Rio Grande floodplain, putting communities on both sides of the river at risk from dammed or deflected water during a major flood.

Last summer they assured landowners and mayors that the new border walls would not pose a flood hazard, and that despite the obvious fact that a wall in a river is by definition a dam these walls would be just fine.

But as their unmet commitment to be good environmental stewards has shown, a Customs and Border Protection promise is not worth the paper it is written on.  

Will Walls Worsen Rio Grande Flooding? U.S. IBWC Can’t Give a Straight Answer

By Scott Nicol

The United States section of the International Boundary and Water Commission (US IBWC) recently hosted a meeting in Rio Grande City to explain their decision to allow Customs and Border Protection to build new border walls in the Rio Grande floodplain.  While they should be commended for reaching out to local residents, they seemed completely unprepared, unable to answer the most basic questions about their decision or the new walls.

When, for example, landowners asked whether there had been any on-the-ground surveys, and what the wall would mean for access and impacts to their property, they got no response. 

The manager for Rio Grande City’s international bridge and port of entry asked how they would be able to access the riverbank to carry out ongoing erosion control efforts.  US IBWC did not know. 

Residents asked whether walls crossing the washes that feed into the Rio Grande might become blocked with debris, preventing normal drainage and causing flooding.  At that point US IBWC admitted that even though they approved these new walls months ago, Customs and Border Protection still has not provided them with the walls’ design specifications, so they could not answer that question either.

2007 Bureau of Land Management photo of debris in the Arizona wall

 

US IBWC was also unable, or unwilling, to answer a key question about the flood model that they are using to justify their approval of border walls in the floodplain. 

Using the Freedom of Information Act the Sierra Club has gotten a copy of the flood model, as well as a number of related documents.

In 2011 Customs and Border Protection paid Baker Engineering to produce a model that claimed that flood water would pass harmlessly through the 4-inch wide spaces between the border wall’s six-inch wide bollard posts.  Baker’s accompanying report stated that, “A debris blockage of 10% was adopted where the fence is aligned parallel to the flow and 25% at locations where the fence is aligned perpendicular to the flow.”

The model’s computer program cannot add to this number, cannot decide that it is too low and that in reality more debris will clog the spaces between bollards.  By telling the computer that 75% to 90% of floodwater will pass through the wall, Baker effectively predetermined the model’s end result.    

At the meeting in Rio Grande City, surrounded by residents whose lands and lives will depend on whether or not these walls will actually let water pass through or will dam it up, US IBWC could not explain where the suspiciously round and suspiciously low estimate of 10% - 25% debris blockage came from.

In earlier reports Baker Engineering came to a very different conclusion about how much debris border walls were likely to catch.

After border walls in Arizona became clogged with debris and acted as dams in 2008, inflicting millions of dollars of damage on both sides of the border and causing two deaths, Baker Engineering was hired to follow the wall from El Paso to San Diego and report back to Customs and Border Protection.  Baker found that, “PF 225 fencing obstructs drainage flow every time a wash is crossed. With additional debris build-up, the International Boundary Water Commission’s (IBWC’s) criteria for rise in water surface elevations (set at 6” in rural areas and 3” in urban areas) can quickly be exceeded.” The report included photographs of bollard-style walls nearly identical to those planned for the Rio Grande floodplain filled with debris, and documented “debris build-up which sometimes reached a height of 6 feet.”

 Photo from the 2009 Baker report showing debris in the Arizona border wall

In examining on-the-ground evidence of debris clogging border walls, it bolstered a 2008 Baker Engineering white paper that looked at the likely impacts of the walls planned for Roma, Rio Grande City, and Los Ebanos.  In discussing the wall’s transfer capacity - the ability of water to pass between the bollards - it stated that,

“The transfer capacity estimate has been shown to include a significant allowance for “clogging” due to the accumulation of debris.  In the case of fence segments O-1 [Roma] and O-2 [Rio Grande City], the transfer capacity was estimated to allow for a minimum of 85% and 67% clogging, respectively.  For fence segment O-3 [Los Ebanos], a minimum allowance of 36% was estimated.  It is important to keep in mind that these estimates apply to portions of the fence that are generally parallel to the direction of flow.  Areas that are oriented generally perpendicular to the direction of flow should (for reasons of prudence) be modeled as completely blocked, primarily due to the hydraulic effects of bollards themselves.”

Map of the three new border walls from the 2011 Baker flood model

 



So how did Baker’s estimates of clogging drop from 85%, 67%, and 36% down to 10% where the wall is parallel to the Rio Grande, and from 100% down to 25% where it is perpendicular?

The US IBWC has yet to give the public an answer to that question.

The new flood model, with its low debris estimate, is cited by the US section of the International Boundary and Water Commission as the basis for its decision to allow these border walls.  The Mexican section has rejected the model’s assumptions, countering in late 2011 that these walls would likely obstruct 60% - 70% of flood flows even before the clogging effect of debris is factored in. 

On February 9, 2012 the two sections of the bi-national organization met to discuss their disagreement.  Meeting notes written by the same US IBWC engineer who was unable to answer questions about the model’s assumptions at the Rio Grande City public meeting say that,

“It was recognized that the Mexican Section may prefer a higher percent debris blockage.  It was explained that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) wanted minimum debris blockage and a percentage that was felt to be reasonable was agreed upon in the meeting on February 23, 2011, during which the modeling methodology was finalized between USIBWC, DHS, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Michael Baker Jr., Inc.”

So even when they met with their Mexican counterparts, US IBWC gave no concrete evidence that the lower estimate was more accurate than the earlier, much higher one.  The nice, round, low number was \simply “felt to be reasonable”, despite conflicting with empirical evidence from Arizona, and was adopted because it matched up with the Department of Homeland Security’s desire for a model showing a “minimum debris blockage.”

Not only was Mexico’s estimate ignored, they were not even invited to participate in the 2011 modeling methodology meeting.  And six days after the 2012 meeting the US section, flouting its treaty obligations, unilaterally approved Customs and Border Protection’s request to build walls in the floodplain.

Customs and Border Protection photo of debris backed up behind the border wall

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has not hosted a public meeting on border walls in South Texas since 2007, but they did send a representative to the recent Rio Grande City meeting.  He declined to present any information, and remained silent unless he was asked a direct question. 

When asked when CBP would begin construction he said that at this time they do not have the funds to build these walls.  He failed to mention that CBP bought the steel years ago and currently has it in storage.  More importantly, he failed to mention that the new fiscal year for federal agencies begins on October 1, at which time their bank accounts will be refilled. 

If border residents want answers, we need to demand them now. 

Representative Cuellar and Senators Hutchison and Cornyn need to pressure the US IBWC to reverse its bad decision, and direct Customs and Border Protection to finally give up on these dangerous walls.  They need to take concrete action, and they need to do it now.

But of course they won’t, unless we, their constituents and voters, tell them to.

October is only three weeks away.  The clock is ticking.

The Grand Old Party Pushes for a Lawless Border

By Scott Nicol

Last month, the Pew Hispanic Center reported that net migration from Mexico into the United States has dropped to zero, with roughly the same number of Mexican citizens heading south across the border as north.

Just a few days earlier, HR 1505, the misnamed National Security and Federal Lands Protection Act, was introduced onto the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives by Representative Rob Bishop (R-Utah).  Aimed at stopping the flood of immigrants that Pew found are, in fact, not pouring over our borders, this bill waives 36 laws on all federal lands within 100 miles of both the northern and southern U.S. borders for any Border Patrol activity.  Forward operating bases, roads, and even more border walls could tear through national parks from Glacier to Olympic to Big Bend, as well as national forests, national monuments, wildlife refuges, and wilderness areas with no concern for the laws that protect natural ecosystems or human communities.

HR 1505 is a dramatic expansion of the Real ID Act, which gave the Secretary of Homeland Security the power to waive laws to build border walls and roads.  In 2008 former DHS Secretary Chertoff waived these same laws, which include the Endangered Species Act, Farmland Policy Protection Act, and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act to build walls that would otherwise have been illegal. 

The resulting damage has been tremendous.   Walls now carve up the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge, fragmenting habitat set aside for endangered ocelot and jaguarundi.  Up and down the Rio Grande, farmers and ranchers, some of whose families have held title to their land since the 1760’s, have had their property condemned.  And during border wall construction ancestral remains were unearthed and left exposed by bulldozers in the Tohono O’Odham reservation.

Now Representative Bishop, whose Utah district is hundreds of miles away from either border, wants to see this brutalizing of our borderlands expanded to cover lands that are nowhere near the border.  He has yet to explain why he believes that the Border Patrol is incapable of enforcing immigration laws without violating every other law.

For their part, the Border Patrol has not asked for the power to ignore our nation’s laws, and they have told Congressional researchers that “land management laws have had no effect on Border Patrol’s overall measure of border security.”  The current Secretary of Homeland Security, former Arizona governor Janet Napolitano, recently called HR 1505 “unnecessary” and “bad policy.” 

One would assume that those who represent border communities would stand up for the borderlands.  Yet  Representative Francisco Canseco, whose district already contains more miles of border wall than any other in Texas, is one of HR 1505’s cosponsors.  The city of Eagle Pass, whose residents are Rep. Canseco’s constituents, was on the receiving end of the very first border wall condemnation.  Big Bend National Park is also in his district, and HR 1505 would sweep aside all of the environmental laws that currently protect and maintain it.

Some of Texas’ other border Representatives have taken the opposite position, asserting that all of our nation’s laws should be enforced on the border, not just those that pertain to immigration.  Representative Ruben Hinojosa, for example, whose district includes the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge, criticized HR 1505, saying, “I think we can allow the Border Patrol to do its work and at the same time protect our environment and our rare animals such as the jaguarundi, the ocelot and our migrating birds in deep South Texas.”

It may be that the difference between the two Representatives’ positions comes down to experience:  Hinojosa saw first-hand the harm inflicted upon the border by the waiving of laws, while Canseco did not come to office until the Tea Party’s surge in 2010.  Or perhaps it is a matter of party affiliation, as Conseco’s Grand Old Party tries to use immigrant bashing and charges that President Obama has not done enough to secure the border as a wedge issue in the upcoming election, ignoring the Pew findings and facts on the ground.

Representative Bishop is currently working hard to convince Democrats, particularly those whose districts are as far from the borders has his own and who he assumes know as little about the borders as him, to support HR 1505.  Bipartisan support would increase the bill’s chances in the Senate, and make a Presidential veto unlikely.

Whether he comes to his decision out of ignorance or politics, Representative Canseco needs to think about the on-the-ground impacts of the National Security and Federal Lands Protection Act on his constituents and the lands they cherish.  He and other members of Congress need to decide whether they stand for partisan politics or stand up for the people who put them in office.  And when the next election comes around border residents need to think seriously about which side their Representatives in Washington are on.

National Park Service Retirees Oppose HR 1505

Yesterday HR 1505, authored by Representative Rob Bishop (R-UT), made it onto the floor of the US House of Representatives. HR 1505 would expand the Real ID Act waiver that former Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff issued in 2008, which allowed for the construction of hundreds of miles of border walls by waiving 36 federal laws that the walls would have otherwise violated. Bishop's bill waives the same laws for any activity undertaken by the Border Patrol on all federal lands within 100 miles of both the northern and southern borders.

The Coalition of National Park Service Retirees immediately issued a press release, stating their opposition to a bill that would do tremendous harm to national parks and other protected lands:

NPS RETIREES: 54 NATIONAL PARK AREAS JEOPARDIZED UNDER BOGUS “NATIONAL SECURITY” BILL ADVANCING IN U.S. HOUSE

Among National Parks Threatened With Unrestricted Construction and Road Building: Olympic, Glacier, Voyageurs, Isle Royale, Big Bend, Joshua Tree, Acadia and Saguaro; Sites in AK, AZ, CA, ME, MI, MN, MT, NM, ND, OH, TX and WA Seen As At Risk.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – April 18, 2012 -- Legislation pending in the U.S. House of Representatives that is being falsely touted as improving U.S. border security would instead “have the potential to devastate 54 of America’s national parks, historic sites, national monuments and other popular park icons and negatively impact the nation’s economy,” according to a warning issued today by the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees (CNPSR). H.R. 1505, the mistitled “National Security and Federal Lands Protection Act,” would gut a century’s worth of proven federal lands protection, potentially opening up millions of pristine acres of national parks to off-road vehicle use, road construction, air strips and helipads, fencing, base installations, and other disruptions.

This radical legislation introduced by Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT) would suspend the enforcement of almost all the nation’s environmental laws on all lands under the jurisdiction of the Departments of the Interior and Agriculture within 100 miles of the northern border with Canada and the southern border with Mexico. It would change the targeted national park and other federal areas into security zones and leave priceless resources unprotected. Such dramatic changes to the integrity of our national parks and forests would almost certainly damage local economies, which have evolved to depend on the tourism, jobs, and related economic benefits generated by these national assets. Why would families seeking the natural and cultural wonders and transformative outdoor experiences of our national parks choose to visit such Border Patrol-controlled areas criss-crossed by new roads, penetrated by noisy all-terrain vehicles, and dominated by tactical infrastructure?

Among the National Park Service areas that fall within H.R. 1505’s proposed 100-mile zone of potential devastation are Acadia, Big Bend, Carlsbad Caverns, Cuyahoga Valley, Glacier, Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, Guadalupe Mountains, Isle Royale, Joshua Tree, North Cascades, Olympic, Saguaro, Theodore Roosevelt, Voyageurs, and Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve. The combined total acreage of these 15 parks is 21,657,399, nearly 25 percent of the overall footprint U.S. National Park System. They are located within the states of Alaska, Arizona, California, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, Texas, and Washington.

CNPSR Chair Maureen Finnerty said: “This legislative proposal is perhaps the most direct assault on national parks ever to be advanced at any level in any Congress in U.S. history. It threatens to literally stop all enforcement of several landmark environmental and conservation laws that NPS uses to manage and protect the National Park System and to serve millions of park visitors. The outrage here is that national parks and other U.S. crown jewels could end up being trashed in the name of achieving national security gains that are fictitious.”

Among the 36 laws that would be expressly suspended within 100 miles of the borders with Canada and Mexico are virtually all environmental, historic preservation, wildlife, pollution, and tribal protection laws, including the National Park Service Organic Act, 1916 (the act that requires park areas to be managed for conservation and enjoyment so as to leave them unimpaired); the Wilderness Act, 1964; the National Environmental Policy Act, 1969; the National Historic Preservation Act, 1966; the Endangered Species Act, 1973; the Clean Water and Clean Air Acts; the Archeological Resources Protection Act, 1979. All these laws are critically important to maintaining the integrity of America’s national parks.

H.R. 1505’s remaining provisions are no less extreme. For example, the bill independently provides “immediate access” to U.S. Customs and Border Patrol for road, equipment, and infrastructure construction and motorized vehicle use on national parks and all the other lands under the jurisdiction of both the Secretary of Agriculture, home of the U.S. Forest Service, and the Secretary of the Interior, home of the National Park Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Bureau of Land Management. In addition, the bill prohibits these Secretaries from “impeding, prohibiting or restricting activities of the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol” on national parks or any of the other lands. Thus, even without the cynical waiver of virtually all environmental laws within 100 miles of the northern and southern borders, this bill achieves essentially the same result, and applies throughout the entire United States, through its remaining provisions.

Furthermore, in light of the interagency collaboration and achievements made under existing authorities, this harmful legislation is not needed. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano testified on March 8, 2012, that the bill “is unnecessary, and it’s bad policy.” And officials from the U.S. Border Patrol testified against the bill in Congress on July 8, 2011, explaining that “U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) enjoys a close working relationship with the Department of Interior (DOI) and Department of Agriculture (USDA) that allows us to fulfill our border enforcement responsibilities while respecting and enhancing the environment. We respect the missions of these agencies, and we recognize the importance of preserving the American landscape. Our agencies have formed a number of agreements that allow us to carry out both of these missions. CBP believes that efforts to reduce the number of illegal aliens crossing the border have lessened environmental degradation and have assisted with recovery of damaged resources, and we are fully committed to continuing our cooperative relationships with DOI and USDA to further this good work.” See the testimony online at http://www.dhs.gov/ynews/testimony/20110708-cbp-national-security-federal-lands-protection-act.shtm.

H.R. 1505 is only one of several pending bills that similarly threaten national parks and other park, refuge, and wilderness lands under the jurisdiction of the Secretaries of the Interior and Agriculture in the name of border security. For example, Senators McCain (R-AZ) and Kyl (R-AZ) and Representative Quayle (R-AZ) are sponsoring amendments to the authorization legislation for the Department of Homeland Security that would have also have devastating impacts on national parks and other Federally protected lands and are unwarranted for national security.

CNPSR’s Finnerty pointed out that “while the other bills do not have the express waiver of virtually all environmental laws like H.R. 1505, they accomplish essentially the same result by allowing the Border Patrol to make decisions on activities like motorized patrol and construction of roads and infrastructure in national park and other conservation areas. It may be that these bills are too radical for Congress to pass or the President to sign as stand-alone bills, thus making it the far greater danger that Congress will tack the park-wrecking provisions onto another must-sign piece of legislation, like an appropriations bill. All these bills are terrible policy, unnecessary for national security, and must be stopped.”

ABOUT CNPSR

The more than 800 members of the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees are all former employees of the National Park Service with a combined over 24,000 years of stewardship of America’ most precious natural and cultural resources. In their personal lives, CNPSR members reflect the broad spectrum of political affiliations. CNPSR members now strive to apply their credibility and integrity as they speak out for national park solutions that uphold law and apply sound science. The Coalition counts among its members: former National Park Service leaders at the national, regional, and park levels, park rangers, and other career professionals who devoted an average of nearly 30 years each to protecting and interpreting America’s national parks on behalf of the public. For more information, visit the CNPSR Web site at http://www.npsretirees.org.

Congressional Push Continues to Gut Environmental Protections Along U.S. Borders

The Center for Biological Diversity has issued the following press release. No Border Wall is in complete agreement, and urges rational members of Congress to reject McCain's amendment to the DHS appropriations bill, along with similar measures in the House, most notably HR 1505.

TUCSON, Ariz.— Under the guise of border security, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) offered an amendment to the Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill today that would grant border-enforcement agencies free rein on federal lands within 300 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border. After criticism from colleagues in his own party that the 300-mile limit went far beyond the scope of border-enforcement activities, McCain scaled it back to 100 miles, and the amendment was added to the bill.

“Politicians are playing games with important border-security legislation at the expense of laws that protect clean air, water and endangered species,” said Randy Serraglio, a conservation advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity. “This amendment is unnecessary, unwanted and threatens significant harm to the wildlife, natural landscapes and people of the border region.”

The McCain amendment introduced today, similar to a bill proposed earlier this year by McCain and Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), does not specifically name any laws, but its guarantee of unfettered access for border-enforcement agencies on federal lands effectively neutralizes protections afforded by the Endangered Species Act, Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act. Existing law permits essential border-security activities even in designated wilderness areas, and an existing memorandum of understanding between Homeland Security and the Department of the Interior provides for cooperation between land managers and border agencies.

“Despite repeated statements and congressional testimony from border-security agencies that they neither want nor need the authority granted in this amendment, radical anti-environment forces in Congress continue to push this hoax on the American people,” said Serraglio. “The losers in this game will be jaguars, ocelots, Sonoran pronghorn and residents of border communities that will no longer benefit from fundamental protections that allow them to live and thrive in a healthy environment.”

The nonpartisan Government Accountability Office concluded in a recent report that access to federal lands has not been limited in 22 of 26 sectors along the border, and that the only problems that have occurred in other sectors have been “minor delays.” Meanwhile, between 8,000 and 20,000 miles of wildcat roads have been blazed through a wilderness area in southern Arizona’s Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge, a majority of which, in recent years, has been caused by enforcement activities, according to a July report by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

“This amendment pretends to address a problem that does not exist,” said Serraglio. “Clearly, access to federal lands for border-security personnel is not a significant issue in achieving operational control of the border. At best, the McCain amendment is a case of political grandstanding.”

“The false premise inherent in this proposal is that border security and a healthy environment are somehow mutually exclusive,” said Serraglio. “The truth is just the opposite. It has been shown time and again that collaboration between land managers and security agencies enhances both border security and protection of the diverse and vibrant landscapes of the borderlands.”

http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2011/border-security-09-14-2011.html

New Amendments Threaten Protected Lands

US representative Gosar has introduced two amendments (no. 20 and 55) to the Department of the Interior's annual appropriations bill that would do tremendous damage to our nation's protected federal lands. Representative Gosar’s (R-AZ) amendment No. 20 is an extreme attack on public lands even more overreaching than recent controversial legislation (H.R. 1505). Under this amendment the U.S. Border Patrol would be exempted from any regulation that would “impede or obstruct” patrol activities on every acre of federal land throughout the United States, putting national treasures at risk and throwing away a century of laws designed to protect our natural resources.

What federal lands would be put at risk?
• All of them. This amendment decimates environmental and other protections on every single acre of federally owned lands, from areas in the southwest already at risk from Border Patrol Activities, like the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge in Arizona, to places far from the border, including the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone National Park, and the Cape Hatteras National Seashore.
• This amendment is NOT restricted to areas near the southwest border or even to areas near all borders, as past legislation has proposed.

What laws would be overturned?
• All of them. This amendment is even more overreaching in its impact on federal lands than the controversial H.R. 1505 because it is not restricted to a long list of environmental regulations, but prevents the enforcement of any regulation, even those put in place for safety and other reasons.
• Other regulations that could be completely ignored are those that support economic development, allowing Border Patrol to interfere with grazing, mining, and drilling for oil and gas on public lands.

What Border Patrol activities would be exempted from any oversight?
• All of them. The amendment does not clearly define what “impede or obstruct” means or who would decide whether a law or regulation meets this standard and could therefore be ignored.
• The amendment is even more overreaching than past bills on the Border Patrol because it does not limit exempted activities to “operational control” – or activities specifically intended to prevent illegal entry into the country. Instead it exempts all “patrol activities” which, without definition, could mean any activity undertaken by the Border Patrol.
• This will create conflict between agencies that have begun to work very effectively together to resolve issues surrounding Border Patrol activities.

Is the amendment even needed by the Border Patrol?

• No. The amendment would override multiagency coordination that has been occurring on Federal lands since a 2006 Memorandum of Agreement between the Departments of Homeland Security, Interior, and Agriculture that has led to increased cooperation and leveraged resources.
• 22 out of 26 Border Patrol stations on the southern border with Mexico report that the border security of their area of operation has not been affected by land management laws beyond some minor delays. Instead, factors like rugged terrain—and not access delays or restrictions—have the highest impact on operational control.
• Exemptions already exist that allow Border Patrol Officers in pursuit to continue onto any federal land regardless of regulations or laws. Other exemptions have also been established administratively to ensure the Border Patrol has the access necessary to secure the border.


In addition, Rep. Gosar has also introduced amendment No. 55, another extreme attack on federal lands. Similar to amendment No. 20, this amendment would exempt the Border Patrol from any environmental review, from protecting clean air and water, from honoring and respecting the history and culture of native people, from preserving biodiversity, and more.

Who isn’t hurt by this amendment?
Representative Gosar’s friends in industries like oil and gas drilling, grazing, mining, and logging are taken off the hook in this updated version of amendment No. 20. Amendment No. 20 exempts the Border Patrol from “any regulation” meaning that rules allowing for development and resources extraction could also be trampled by any Border Patrol activities. Amendment No. 55, however, spares these special interests and instead focuses its attack on the environment, biodiversity, and native people.

What environmental and cultural laws would be overturned?
A similar list of laws to that found in H.R. 1505 is included in the amendment. These laws represent a century of bipartisan efforts to protect the environment, intelligently manage public lands, and demonstrate respect for historical and cultural sites.

The exempted laws include:

The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (42 U.S.C. 4321 et seq.)
The Endangered Species Act of 1973 (16 U.S.C. 1531 et seq.)
The Clean Water Act (33 U.S.C. 1251 et seq.)
The National Historic Preservation Act (16 U.S.C. 470 et seq.).
The Migratory Bird Treaty Act (16 U.S.C. 703 et seq.)
The Clean Air Act (42 U.S.C. 7401 et seq.).
The Archeological Resources Protection Act of 1979 (16 U.S.C. 18 470aa et seq.).
The Safe Drinking Water Act (42 U.S.C. 300f et seq.).
The Noise Control Act of 1972 (42 U.S.C. 4901 et seq.).
The Solid Waste Disposal Act (42 U.S.C. 6901 et seq.).
The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (42 U.S.C. 9601 et seq.)
The Archaeological and Historic Preservation Act' and the Archaeological Recovery Act (16 U.S.C. 469 et seq.).
The Antiquities Act (16 U.S.C. 431 et seq.).
The Historic Sites, Buildings, and Antiquities Act (16 U.S.C. 461 et seq.)
The Farmland Protection Policy Act (7 U.S.C. 4201 et seq.).
The Coastal Zone Management Act of 1972 (16 U.S.C. 1451 et seq.).
The Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (43 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.).
The Wilderness Act (16 U.S.C. 1131 et seq.).
The Bald Eagle Protection Act of 1940 (16 U.S.C. 668 et seq.).
The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (25 U.S.C. 3001 et seq.).
The American Indian Religious Freedom Act (42 U.S.C. 1996 et seq.).
The Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (42 U.S.C. 2000bb et seq.).
The Federal Grant and Cooperative Agreement Act of 1977 (31 U.S.C. 6303 et seq.)

What Species would be impacted?
The bill waives compliance with all provisions of the ESA on federal lands. Species throughout the nation that would be impacted include

In the Southwest
• Mexican spotted owl
• Desert tortoise
• Jaguar
• Ocelot
• Sonoran pronghorn
• Chiricahua leopard frog

Elsewhere in the country
• Florida Panther
• Canada lynx
• Polar bear
• Hawaii akepa (honeycreeper)
• Leatherback sea turtle
• West Indian manatee