Walkers Remember Migrants on Tohono O'odham Land

By Brenda Norrell

SAN XAVIER DISTRICT, TOHONO O'ODHAM NATION -- Walkers arrived at San Xavier District on the Tohono O'odham Nation on Saturday to remember the 183 migrants who died this past year in the Sonoran desert. Of those migrants, 108 were not identified. Nineteen could not be identified as male or female because so little of their remains were found. A large portion of those deaths were on Tohono O'odham land.

Walkers called out "Presente!" during the reading of the names at San Xavier, remembering those who died walking to a better life. The walk, organized by Derechos Humanos, was an 8-mile walk from Tucson, during temperatures that reached the mid 90s.

Although the elected leaders on the main section of the Tohono O'odham Nation, located to the west of here, have not welcomed humanitarian aid for migrants, the San Xavier District cohosted the Indigenous Peoples Border Summit of the Americas in 2006 and 2007. The border summits were cohosted by the International Indian Treaty Council and organized by Tohono O'odham Mike Flores.

Photos: Walkers arrive at San Xavier. Crosses carry the names of the migrants who died this past year. Photos Brenda Norrell. Please e-mail for reprint permission: brendanorrell@gmail.com

This originally appeared in Censored News: http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2008/11/walkers-remember-migrants-on-tohono.html

Senator Cornyn's Lack of Integrity Brings Texans the Border Wall

Despite the fact that he voted for both the Secure Fence Act and the Real ID Act, in October Texas Senator John Cornyn told the Border Trade Alliance, “I have long said that I do not support a fence, or as some said, a wall, between the United States and Mexico. That’s irrational and just doesn’t make sense, because we know that people can come over fences or walls; they can go under them; they can go through them, given sufficient opportunity.”

Just a few weeks later Senator Cornyn authored S. 2348, the “Emergency Border Security Funding Act of 2007”, showing once again that he values the worst politics ahead of the best interests of south Texas and our nation. It called for 700 linear miles of border wall and 300 miles of vehicle barriers along the US – Mexico border, and provided $3 billion dollars to get construction started. This despite his earlier statement and the fact that the walls built so far have had no impact on the number of people coming across our southern border.

Once again, Senator Cornyn was talking out of both sides of his mouth. When he visited the border, where people know that a wall will do tremendous damage without bringing any benefit, he said that he does not support a border wall. When he went back to Washington he pandered to far-right xenophobes and sponsored legislation providing $3 billion to build the border walls in Texas that he admits will not work, that he knows border residents do not want, and that he claims not to support.

Cornyn also said, "I assure you there will be local consultation. There will not be ... unilateral actions on the part of the Department of Homeland Security without local input." But of course that promise has proved to be false as well. The Department of Homeland Security has not listened to any local input, and has instead relied upon condemnation proceedings to take private and municipal property against the owners’ will. Homes and businesses will be bulldozed, farms and ranches will be cut off from the Rio Grande, parks and wildlife refuges will be destroyed. This destruction was not agreed upon by its victims.

When DHS Secretary Chertoff used the authority granted him by the Real ID Act to waive 36 federal laws to build the border wall, one of those laws was the National Environmental Policy Act. It requires that a project’s impacts on both the human and natural environment be thoroughly examined, and that public input be solicited and addressed. Two days after handing down the waiver Chertoff told the Texas Border Coalition that the Final Environmental Assessments and Environmental Impact Statements that had been close to completion would not be released to the public. Thousands of public comments that had been received will never be addressed. Texas Congressman Silvestre Reyes said, “it is clear that DHS is not communicating with the border communities that would be most adversely affected by this project."

If Cornyn and other Senators from southern border states were to stand up for their constituents and denounce the border wall on the floor of Congress, it would have an impact on Senators from northern states. Other Senators assume that, representing a state that borders Mexico, Texas Senator Cornyn has some insight into border issues. If he were to show them that the border wall will only slow down, not stop, undocumented crossers, they might listen. If he were to present evidence that the wall will do tremendous environmental damage and destroy the Rio Grande Valley’s $125 million ecotourism industry, they might pay attention. If he were to stand up for property owners in El Paso, Presidio, Roma, Brownsville, and other Texas communities in the face of DHS attempts to trample their legal rights and seize their property, other Senators might support him.

Unfortunately, Senator Cornyn has done none of these things. Instead he has worked to make the border wall a reality, and his support for the wall gives political cover to members of Congress who might otherwise be persuaded to oppose it. So long as he refuses to take a leadership role in stopping the border wall, it is going to be extremely difficult to convince Congress to revisit it. Hopefully Senator Cornyn’s lack of leadership and integrity will catch up with him this November.

The border wall will drive jaguars to extinction in the United States

The Center for Biological Diversity is bringing suit to force the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to develop a recovery plan for jaguars in southern Arizona. Listed under the Endangered Species Act, the jaguar is one of the first species that will be driven to extinction by the border wall. If the walls that are on the books for 2008 are built, the Sonoran pronghorn, cactus ferruginous pygmy owl, ocelot, jaguarundi, and a number of other species will follow the jauar into oblivion. While the border-wide waiver of laws that DHS Secretary Chertoff issued on April 1 exempts the activities of the Department of Homeland Security from 36 federal laws, including the Endangered Species Act and National Environmental Policy Act, U.S. Fish and Wildlife is still required to obey the law and develop recovery plans for critically endnagered species. The No Border Wall Coalition applauds the Center for Biological Diversity's efforts to compel the federal government to uphold federal environmental laws.

For Immediate Release, April 30, 2008

Silver City, N.M.— The Center for Biological Diversity filed suit today against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to compel development of a recovery plan and critical habitat for the endangered jaguar. The suit challenges a “finding,” signed by Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dale Hall, that a recovery plan would not promote the conservation of the jaguar.

The finding was signed January 7, 2008, four months after the Fish and Wildlife Service issued a biological opinion that served as a green light — by stating that there would be no jeopardy to the survival of the jaguar — for construction of a border wall that is now rising along the Arizona border with Sonora, Mexico in regions where jaguars roam.

Construction of the wall will end the ongoing jaguar recolonization of former habitats in the United States. Four male jaguars, identifiable by the individual pattern of their rosettes, have been photographed in the United States since 1996, including one photographed repeatedly in southern Arizona over the past 12 years. Other unconfirmed jaguars have also been reported.

Fish and Wildlife’s finding, which was not subject to public review, relies on regulatory loopholes allowing the Service to forgo development of recovery plans in extraordinary circumstances, such as when “the species’ historic and current ranges occur entirely under the jurisdiction of other countries.” However, both the jaguar’s historic U.S. range from California through the Carolinas and its current U.S. range in southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico disqualify it from this exemption.

“The American jaguar has been exterminated from all but a tiny sliver of its vast historic range in the United States,” said Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity. “A recovery plan is a science-based document that would help the jaguar reclaim and eventually be secure in more of its native ecosystems.”

Robinson added: “We will not let the Bush administration, now walling off the border, doom the jaguar to extinction in its northern range.”

The finding directly contradicts the assessments of independent biologists that a science-based recovery plan is imperative for the jaguar. In September 2006, Dr. Brian Miller and Dr. Howard Quigley, both members of the interagency Jaguar Conservation Team’s Scientific Advisory Group, wrote the Fish and Wildlife Service to request appointment of a jaguar recovery team. The primary role of a recovery team is to craft a recovery plan.

Dr. Miller has studied wild jaguars in Jalisco, Mexico. Today Dr. Miller stated: “A recovery team and the recovery plan its members produce would reduce conflict because it would force people to consider evidence for an issue rather than rely on political beliefs. Science-based planning puts biological sideboards within which people can negotiate and solve problems.”

In June 2007, over 500 members of the American Society of Mammalogists met in Albuquerque and unanimously passed a resolution calling on the Fish and Wildlife Service to develop a recovery plan for the jaguar. The resolution concluded that “habitats for the jaguar in the United States, including Arizona and New Mexico, are vital to the long-term resilience and survival of the species, especially in response to ongoing climate change.”

In its finding, the Fish and Wildlife Service states that “the existing voluntary approach” of the Jaguar Conservation Team suffices instead of a recovery plan. In 1997 the team pledged to “coordinate protection of jaguar habitat,” but it has not done so, not even taking a stand against the ongoing construction of the border wall.

The Fish and Wildlife Service has developed international recovery plans for the Mexican gray wolf (1982) and the whooping crane (2007), among others, indicating the practicality of working across borders to recover endangered wildlife.

The Endangered Species Act is intended to recover species and conserve their ecosystems. The presence of jaguars in the Southwest contributed to the evolution of alertness in deer and the tendency of the pig-like javelina to travel in herds for protection. Because jaguars roam widely, protection for their habitat can also protect the habitats for many other species – an example of the link between conservation of species and their habitats that is contemplated in the Act.

The jaguar was listed as an endangered species south of the border in 1972 but was not afforded protection in the United States until July 1997, which only occurred as a result of a previous Center for Biological Diversity lawsuit against the Fish and Wildlife Service.

Background

The jaguar is the largest New World cat. It historically occurred from the southern United States through Mexico and Central America to South America. In the United States it once roamed the southern states from Monterey Bay, California through the Appalachian Mountains. It was exterminated by the same federal predator extermination program that wiped out wolves in the western United States, along with persecution by the livestock industry and habitat loss.

The last female jaguar confirmed in the United States was shot by a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service predator control agent in the Apache National Forest (where Mexican gray wolves have since been reintroduced) in 1963.

When the jaguar was listed as an endangered species throughout its range in 1997, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was then required to develop a recovery plan and designate critical habitat for it.

Members of Congress Urged to Support the Borderlands Conservation and Security Act

The No Border Wall Coalition has signed on to the following letter urging members of the U.S. House of Representatives to support H.R. 2593, the Borderlands Conservation and Security Act. Signers include the Defenders of Wildlife, Sierra Club, World Wildlife Fund, Earthjustice, and a host of other organizations. While H.R. 2593 does not repeal the Secure Fence Act, it does repeal section 102 of the Real ID Act. This is the law that states, “Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the Secretary of Homeland Security shall have the authority to waive all legal requirements such Secretary, in such Secretary’s sole discretion, determines necessary to ensure expeditious construction of the barriers and roads under this section.” It gives Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff the unchecked power to ignore the laws of our nation, and to waive those laws when homeowners, landowners, and environmentalists try to force DHS to obey them.

Dear Representative:

We urge you to cosponsor H.R. 2593, the Borderlands Conservation and Security Act. The
legislation amends existing border security laws which hinder strategic border security efforts and needlessly ignore environmental impacts and local communities.

The status quo mandates a weak border security mechanism and limits the Department of
Homeland Security (DHS): Currently, the Secure Fence Act requires DHS to construct a wall along non-continuous sections of the border between the U.S. and Mexico. Past experiences clearly show, border walls do not stop undocumented immigrants and drug smugglers. They just go around, climb over or dig under the wall. In addition, a rigidly mandated, one-size-fits-all border wall is inefficient and is an enormous waste of taxpayer dollars. Border security can and should be more strategic. H.R. 2593 would provide experts at DHS the ability to decide whether fences, vehicle barriers, or virtual fences would be most effective way to secure the border.

The status quo results in uninformed construction to the detriment of wildlife, citizens and border security: At present, section 102(c) of the Real ID Act grants the DHS Secretary broad and unparalleled authority to waive any and all federal, state and local laws when constructing barriers along the U.S. Border. As a result important considerations, such as blocking vital cross-border wildlife movement, are dismissed in the rush to waive laws and push forward with construction. Citizens, border security experts and land management agencies are all but cut out of the border security decisions. Citizens are denied the right to establish how border walls may devastate local economies dependant on ecotourism, legal international trade and good relations. Indeed, in the most recent waiver case in San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area, citizens were denied the right to participate or inform the decision at all. HR. 2593 would give land management agencies, Native American tribes, and local communities a voice in border construction and decisionmaking.

The status quo threatens the nation’s commitment to the rule of law: DHS has invoked the Real ID Act waiver three times, waiving more laws with each successive use. Recently, in response to a court determination that DHS border wall construction violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the Secretary waived not just NEPA but eighteen other laws as well, each of which was passed by Congress to protect public health, imperiled wildlife, or to guarantee citizens the right and a process to address arbitrary and capricious decisions of their government. And yet, each was waived without congressional oversight, a means of recourse for the public impacted, or any explanation. A notice was filed in the Federal Register and automatically nineteen laws were dismissed. Authorizing DHS to ignore all laws is no way to signal that the rule of law is to be respected. The president does not have the authority to waive laws at will, neither should an unelected official. We need an urgent and strategic solution to border security, not a reckless one which threatens the rule of law. H.R. 2593 would require compliance with laws meant to protect the air, water, wildlife, culture, and the health and safety of people in borderland communities.

We all support national security, and we can have intelligent security without harm to our precious borderlands, wildlife, and border communities. Again, we strongly urge you to Cosponsor H.R. 2593, and support its passage by the U.S. House of Representatives.

The Draft EIS for the Texas Border Wall must be rewritten to comply with NEPA

The public comment period for the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for Construction, Maintenance, and Operation of Tactical Infrastructure for the Rio Grande Valley Sector, Texas ended on New Year’s Eve. The Draft EIS is a fundamentally flawed document, designed to give the appearance of compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) when in fact it is little more than a sales pitch. This document in no way satisfies the requirements of NEPA. Rather than issue an equally flawed and hasty Final Environmental Impact Statement with the Draft EIS at its core, the Draft EIS should be scrapped and replaced with a Revised Draft EIS that objectively evaluates the varied impacts that the border wall (or border fence, or tactical infrastructure, or whatever they choose to call it) will have.

The bias in the writing gives the appearance that this document was intended to justify the actions that the Department of Homeland Security plans to carry out rather than objectively evaluate them. There is also a tremendous amount of important data that could be readily obtained that is inexplicably missing. Without this data, which ranges from impacts on endangered species and the economy to hydrological modeling of the effects of the wall during flooding or a hurricane, decision makers, municipalities, stakeholders, and the general public can not adequately analyze the reasonably foreseeable impacts of the border wall. This is in direct opposition to the regulations set out by the Council on Environmental Quality to implement the National Environmental Policy Act.

In determining what alternatives to study and what criteria to use in evaluating them, the Council on Environmental Quality mandates that an Environmental Impact Study should “briefly specify the underlying purpose and need to which the agency is responding in proposing the alternatives including the proposed action.” (Sec.1502.13) For example, in this instance the goal might be to enhance national security, stop or reduce unauthorized entries into the United States, etc. Instead, the Draft EIS establishes the preferred action as the same as the “purpose and need” of the action:

“The purpose of the Proposed Action is to increase border security within the USBP Rio Grande Valley Sector through the construction, operation, and maintenance of tactical infrastructure in the form of fences, roads, and supporting technological and tactical assets.” (1.2 – 4)

On the same page the “proposed action” is described as follows:

“USBP proposes to construct, maintain, and operate tactical infrastructure consisting of pedestrian fence and associated patrol roads, and access roads along 21 discreet areas of the U.S./Mexico international border in the USBP Rio Grande Valley Sector, Texas.” (1.3 – 4)

If the purpose and the proposed action are one and the same - the construction, operation, and maintenance of “tactical infrastructure” - then by definition no other alternatives will be able to achieve the stated purpose. “Additional USBP Agents in Lieu of Tactical Infrastructure” (2.3.1 – 11) may in fact be highly effective at preventing unauthorized entries into the United States, but because it is “in Lieu of Tactical Infrastructure” it will never bring about the stated goal of “the construction, operation, and maintenance of tactical infrastructure.” The same holds true for all of the other “Alternatives Considered but Eliminated from Further Detailed Analysis.” In each case, the phrase “in Lieu of Tactical Infrastructure” is attached, so by definition none will align with the stated purpose.

This is a clear violation of the Council on Environmental Quality’s regulations governing Environmental Impact Statements. They state,

“Environmental impact statements shall serve as the means of assessing the environmental impact of proposed agency actions, rather than justifying decisions already made.” (Sec. 1502.2)

If the Draft EIS is to comply with Council on Environmental Quality regulations the stated purpose must be rewritten. As all other assessments regarding alternatives and effectiveness are derived from the stated purpose of the proposed actions, this is a fatal flaw for the Draft EIS. The Executive Summary, Introduction (Section 1), and Proposed Action and Alternatives (Section 2) are completely undermined by this.


Green jays in the Rio Grande Valley.

The Draft EIS was published before US Fish and Wildlife had issued the Natural Resource Survey and Cultural Resource Survey Compatibility Determinations which would allow surveyors to enter tracts of the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge. Yet in the Draft EIS it states:

“Surveyors walked the entire length of the proposed project corridor for each tactical infrastructure section, and examined in more detail areas containing unique species compositions of habitat that might be conducive to sensitive species.” (Appendix I 6)

Either this statement is inaccurate, or employees of the private contractor e2M violated USFW regulations and entered refuge tracts to conduct surveys without the necessary permits. If the Draft EIS was published without accessing USFW refuge tracts, why was its completion rushed without carrying out surveys that e2M thought were important when they requested Compatibility Determinations? How is it possible to accurately assess the natural and cultural resources that are in the path of the border wall without setting foot on any refuge tracts?

Walls built on refuge properties will do damage in terms of direct loss of vegetation, which will in turn eliminate opportunities for animals to find food and shelter. According to the Draft EIS,

“The Proposed Action would result in the irretrievable loss of vegetation and wildlife habitat. In the long term, construction of the tactical infrastructure would result in the loss of 125 acres of potential wildlife habitat, force the relocation of wildlife, and require the removal of natural vegetation.” (5.14 18)

The border wall will also lead to the fragmentation of habitat, both through the clearing of brush and the erection of impermeable barriers. The key goal of the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge is the establishment of a wildlife corridor along the Rio Grande. This means continuous habitat, allowing plants and animals to move from one area to another. Such movement is crucial for the maintenance of genetic viability within a given population. Habitat fragmentation may cause inbreeding because animals from one piece of habitat are unable to travel to reach mates that they are not related to. Inbreeding can lead to a weakened population that is less able to cope with environmental stresses or disease. This is already a tremendous problem for endangered ocelots and jaguarundi, both of which may be driven to extinction by the border wall.


The wall will fragment the habitat of federally endangered jaguarundi.

The Texas border wall’s route takes it through a number of communities, including Roma, Rio Grande City, Granjeno, and Brownsville. The Draft EIS mentions the fact that some residential properties will either be impacted or destroyed:

“Minor to moderate adverse indirect impacts would be expected from the imminent dislocation of some families due to property acquisition. Some housing properties would either be removed or visually impaired by the pedestrian fence and adjacent patrol roads. The social aspects of dislocation could be disruptive. Many families in the proposed project corridor have lived there for decades, some even centuries, and have strong emotional ties to the family land and homes.” (4.12.55)

The Draft EIS does not provide any specific details, however. The number of homes that will be impacted is not given, nor is the number that will be “relocated” or “removed”. Will 4 houses be bulldozed, or 40, or 400? Letters have been sent out to homeowners and landowners who have refused access to their properties, so DHS apparently knows which properties will be affected.
There is also no explanation of the conclusion that the “dislocation of some families” would only have “minor to moderate adverse impacts.” What is the criterion for “minor to moderate”, and how does the removal of a family’s home fall short of “major?”


The Berlin wall.

The flaws in this document are so numerous and so egregious that the only way to correct them is to rewrite and reissue the Draft Environmental Impact Statement rather than rushing to issue the Final EIS. The Council on Environmental Quality provided for this possibility in the regulations that govern Environmental Impact Statements, directing that,

“…if a draft statement is so inadequate as to preclude meaningful analysis, the agency shall prepare and circulate a revised draft of the appropriate portion.” (Sec. 1502.9(a))

This is precisely what must occur in this instance if the process is to have any credibility. Anything less would fail to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act, and would be a disservice to the American people who will be forced to live with and pay for the border wall.