Arresting Babies on the Border

by Scott Nicol

“They’re arresting babies.”

The thought struck hard, and it kept echoing.  I had come to the border wall with a correspondent from National Public Radio to see its impact on the environment.  We had also seen evidence of the apprehensions that occur there daily.  Piles of shoelaces and belts that immigrants were forced to abandon before being taken into custody, and even a pair of plastic toy helicopters, littered the ground.

The Border Patrol agent said that they had captured eighteen people.  Most sat in a line in the dirt beside the rusting wall as agents took their names and bagged their possessions.  Only three or four were adults.

Inside a Border Patrol van, escaping the heat, were two mothers, each with an infant in her arms.  On the seats beside them were a pair of toddlers.

The Border Patrol would probably prefer not to use the term “arrest,” but the children were taken into custody along with the rest of their family.  All eighteen will be included in the sector’s apprehension statistics.

In 2013 the Border Patrol apprehended 26,027 juveniles in its Rio Grande Valley sector, 21,553 of whom were unaccompanied.  Border-wide 38,833 out of the 47,238 minors who were captured were traveling without an adult.  At least these children were not on their own.

Call it an apprehension, call it an arrest, for a child too young to walk or talk the terminology does not matter.

The United States of America, through elected Representatives who are meant to express the will of its citizens, spent $18 billion last year to keep these families out.  A few years back taxpayers spent $12 million per mile to build the border wall that stood nearby, and more than $3 billion was spent to wall off 652 miles of the southern border.  From 1995 to 2003 we doubled the size of the Border Patrol, then over the last decade we doubled their ranks again.  They carry out the mission that we have given them.

We are arresting babies.

And toddlers.  And teenagers.  And adolescents.  And their parents.

We have decided that the people I saw lined up beside the wall, parents who traveled hundreds of miles from Guatemala looking for work with children in tow, threaten us.

Like most who walk or swim across the border they are not terrorists, they are not smugglers, they simply want a better life.  They are parents struggling to feed their families.  They are children hoping to escape violence, go to school, live the American Dream.  So long as that desperation and desire remains people will keep coming. 

This is not a challenge to our nation’s defenses, it is a test of our conscience.

When the Senate took up immigration reform they failed to grasp this.  They made a “border surge,” with hundreds of miles of new border wall, a further ballooning of the Border Patrol, and tens of billions of dollars of new military hardware, a “trigger” that must be completed before anyone currently in the country could start on a thirteen-year-long pathway to citizenship.  The irrational fears of middle American voters who only see the border when they watch FOX News or Border Wars on TV had to be appeased.

Even with the “surge” Republicans in the U.S. House refuse to even debate immigration reform.  They are far less concerned with the children sitting in a line on the dirt beside the wall than they are about a Tea Party challenge in the next primary election.

The Border Patrol agents called headquarters to have child car seats sent out.  Older kids shuffled back into the green and white van, now lacking belts and laces for their sneakers.

After they drove off we began to walk back along the top of the levee.  Through the border wall’s rusting bollards we could see another mother being marched out of the brush, clutching an infant to her chest.

As the sun settled into the treetops the wind carried the baby’s cries.

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

Another Round of South Texas Border Wall Condemnations is about to Begin

By Scott Nicol

If the Border Patrol knocks on your door you might want to have a lawyer present when you answer.

That is because Customs and Border Protection is gearing up for a fresh round of land condemnations to build border walls in Roma, Rio Grande City, and Los Ebanos.

According to documents obtained by the Sierra Club through a Freedom of Information Act request the new walls won’t just slice through farmland and wildlife refuges.  In Roma “up to 25 residences could be impacted.”  In Rio Grande City the wall’s route will take it through a nursing home, and “If the decision is made to buy the tract out in its entirety, the business will need to be relocated along with 64 residents, potentially up to 90 residents if at 100% capacity.”  In Los Ebanos landowners who went through condemnation three years ago will be hauled into court again to have more of their property snatched away.

This new assault on border communities is the result of the US section of the International Boundary Water Commission’s (US IBWC) decision to allow border walls to go up in the Rio Grande floodplain.

When they were first proposed, along with the rest of South Texas’ border walls, US IBWC stated categorically that walls could not be erected in the floodplain because they posed an unacceptable flood risk to communities on both sides of the river.  Walls north of the river might deflect rising flood waters, worsening the damage to Mexican cities and possibly even pushing the river into a new channel, thereby changing the location of the international border.  For this reason walls in Cameron County were erected north of the flood control levees, and in Hidalgo County there were inserted into them.

 

The new walls will be identical to those built in Cameron County, using six inch wide steel posts that stand eighteen feet tall with four inch spaces in between.  In 2008 Baker Engineering looked at the impacts of this design placed in these locations, and estimated that during a flood the walls would clog with debris, limiting the ability of water to pass between the pillars.  In Roma they estimated an 85% blockage where the walls paralleled the river’s flow; in Rio Grande City a 67% blockage; and in Los Ebanos a 36% blockage.  Where the walls would be erected perpendicular to the flow Baker said CBP should assume that debris would cause the walls to be completely blocked.

In 2011 Customs and Border Protection paid Baker to look at the same wall design placed in the same location, and with no new evidence or explanation they came to a radically different conclusion.  Now “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.”  Not surprisingly the model that this new estimate was plugged into concluded that walls in the floodplain would not deflect or dam flood water, since 75 -90% of the water would supposedly pass right through.

 

The US section of IBWC accepted this without question.  The Mexican section categorically rejected it. 

One would think that a bi-national organization would require agreement before permitting potentially dangerous projects.  Instead, the new border walls are going up.

In a presentation dated March 1, 2013, Customs and Border Protection laid out a timeline for the construction of these new walls:

Funds:  already received.

Achieve right of entry to survey property for wall construction:  60 days.

Initiate new acquisitions of property, through purchase or condemnation:  180 days.

So if you have property in the path of these walls, now is the time to call a lawyer.

And those lawyers are going to be very busy.  The “gang of eight” immigration bill includes $1.5 billion for new border walls. 

When Congress passed the Secure Fence Act in 2006 Customs and Border Protection walled off big portions of California, Arizona, and New Mexico.  There aren’t too many places outside of inaccessible mountains without walls up there.  What’s left is Texas. 

Unless the bill is changed and the walls are taken out Customs and Border Protection will start filling in the unwalled spaces between South Texas’ existing border walls.  The Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge, and the endangered species that it protects, will be utterly decimated.  And every other landowner with property along the Rio Grande from Roma to Boca Chica will stand in turn before a federal judge, before watching construction crews wall off their land from the river. 

Some, like the 25 households in Roma or the senior citizens in Rio Grande City, may even see the their homes fall to these new border walls.

UN CERD Expresses Concern over US-Texas Border Wall Discriminatory Impact on Indigenous Peoples

Press Release – For Immediate Release

UN CERD Expresses Concern over US-Texas Border Wall Discriminatory Impact on Indigenous Peoples;

Addresses US Government and Need to Comply with Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination

Brownsville, Texas – March 25, 2013 – The U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), Early Warning and Urgent Action Procedures has expressed “concern regarding the potentially discriminatory impact that the construction of a border wall might have on the Kikapoo, Ysleta del Sur Pueblo and Lipan Apache indigenous communities,” in response to a petition from the Texas-Mexico Border Wall region which was under review during it’s 82nd session.

In a letter March 1, 2013 to Betty E. King, U.S. Permanent Ambassador to the United Nations, UN CERD Chair Alexei Avtonomov stated, “In particular, the Committee is concerned by the situation of the Lipan Apache, a tribe which reportedly remains Federally unrecognized, given the information received that the construction of the wall through its land has allegedly damaged ancestral burial sites, reduced the tribe’s access to elders and other knowledge keepers, led to severe decline in biodiversity, and may lead to the disappearance of the tribal identity altogether as the community may be forced to leave the land.

“Moreover, the Committee is concerned that... the border wall has been constructed without the free, prior and informed consent of the affected communities, and that no effective judicial remedies or compensation have been provided to date.” The letter continues on to request that the U.S. provides updated and detailed information with regard to the impact of the Texas-Mexico border wall on the rights of indigenous communities, and any measures envisaged to reverse the negative impact of the construction of the the border wall.

Says petition co-author Dr. Margo Tamez, citizen of the Lipan Apache Band of Texas, and Faculty of Indigenous Studies at the University of British Columbia Okanagan, “As an Indigenous scholar working on this effort to raise critical awareness, and as a first-hand witness to the suffering of Indigenous elders, families and communities in the path of the border wall, the CERD's request to the U.S. government is an affirmation of the importance of Indigenous peoples' efforts to promote paths and transitional spaces of inquiry for truth and justice. Meaningful partnerships of trust and respect are crucial in order for this process to address Indigenous peoples' core concerns and to halt the inter-generational harms they have endured.”

Petition co-author Ariel Dulitzky, Clinical Professor at the University of Texas School of Law, and Director of the Human Rights Clinic of the University of Texas at Austin, says, “CERD has made a clear demand for proper consultation and consideration of the indigenous communities in the border area. We call upon the U.S. Government to pay close attention to CERD’s request in terms of reversing the negative impact of the border wall and securing the rights of indigenous peoples to access their lands, resources and holy sites, to be properly consulted, and to receive compensation.”

A statement issued by Daniel Romero, General Council Chairman for the The Lipan Apache Band of Texas (Ndé) states, “We ask that the Obama Administration and Congress to incorporate CERD’s demands for proper consultation and consideration of the indigenous peoples and communities of the borderlands region. We request that the U.S. Government be inclusive of Ndés’ request in current immigration reform and proposal of the border lands policies that have negatively influenced the Ndé way of life.”

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Lipan Apache Women Defense http://lipancommunitydefense.wordpress.com/

Lipan Apache Band of Texas http://www.lipanapachebandoftexas.com/
Spanish

 

Comunicado de prensa - Para publicación inmediata

 

Comité para la Eliminación de la Discriminación Racial (CERD) de las Naciones Unidas expresa preocupación por el impacto discriminatorio del muro fronterizo de Estados Unidos-Texas sobre los Pueblos Indígenas de esa region.

 

El Gobierno de los Estados Unidos deberá cumplir con el Convenio sobre la Eliminación de todas las Formas de Discriminación Racial

 

Brownsville, Texas - 25 de marzo de 2013 - El Comité para la Eliminación de la Discriminación Racial (CERD) de las Naciones Unidas, Alerta Temprana y Procedimientos de Acción Urgente ha expresado su "preocupación por el impacto potencialmente discriminatorio que la construcción del muro fronterizo podría tener en las comunidades indígenas Kikapoo, Ysleta del Sur Pueblo y Lipan Apache ", en respuesta a una petición de la región del muro entre Texas-Mexico que fue objeto de examen en su 82 ª reunión.

 

En una carta el 01 de marzo 2013 a Betty E. King, Embajadora Permanente de EE.UU. ante las Naciones Unidas, ONU CERD Presidente Alexei Avtonomov declaró: "En particular, el Comité está preocupado por la situación de los Lipa Apache, una tribu que al parecer sigue siendo no reconocida por el gobierno federal, dada la información recibida de que la construcción del muro a través de su tierras ancestrales aparentemente a destruido lugares ancestrales de entierro, a reducido el acceso de la tribu a sus ancianos y cuidadores de conocimiento, y a encaminado a la disminución severa en la biodiversidad, y pude llevar a la desaparición de una identidad tribal como una comunidad que puede ser sujeta abandonar sus tierras.

 

"Además, al Comité le preocupa que ... el muro se ha construido sin el consentimiento libre, previo e informado de las comunidades afectadas, y que no existen recursos judiciales efectivos o compensación se han proporcionado hasta la fecha.” La carta continúa peticiona que los EE.UU. proporcione información actualizada y detallada en lo que respecta al impacto del muro fronterizo entre Texas y México sobre los derechos de las comunidades indígenas, y todas las medidas previstas para revertir el impacto negativo de la construcción del muro de la frontera.

 

Dice la Dr. Margo Tamez, co-autora de la petición, ciudadana de la Banda de Lipan Apache de Texas, y Facultad de Estudios Indígenas de la Universidad de British Columbia Okanagan, "Como académica indígena trabajando en este esfuerzo por crear conciencia crítica, y como testigo a primera mano del sufrimiento de los ancianos, las familias y las comunidades en el camino del muro fronterizo, la petición del CERD ante el gobierno de los EE.UU. es una afirmación de la importancia de los esfuerzos de los pueblos indígenas en promover los espacios de transición para la investigación de la verdad y justicia. La creación de redes significativas que creen confianza y respeto son fundamentales para que este proceso pueda abordar las preocupaciones fundamentales de los pueblos indígenas y para detener los daños intergeneracionales que se han sufrido. "

 

Petición co-autor Ariel Dulitzky, Profesor Clínico de la Universidad de Texas Escuela de Derecho, y Director de la Clínica de Derechos Humanos de la Universidad de Texas en Austin, dice: "El Comité ha hecho una clara demanda de consulta y consideración de las comunidades indígenas de la zona fronteriza. Hacemos un llamamiento al Gobierno de EE.UU. que preste mucha atención a la solicitud de CERD en términos de revertir el impacto negativo del muro fronterizo y así asegurar los derechos de los pueblos indígenas al acceder sus tierras, recursos y sitios sagrados, para ser debidamente consultado y recibir una compensación . "

 

Un comunicado emitido por Daniel Romero, Presidente del Consejo General de la Banda Lipan Apache de Texas (Ndé), dice: "Pedimos que el gobierno de Obama y el Congreso pudea incorporar las demandas de CERD sobre consulta y consideración de los pueblos indígenas y las comunidades de la zona fronteriza región. Pedimos que el gobierno de EE.UU. incluya a solicitud de Ndés las en la reforma de la inmigración actual y propuesta de las políticas de tierras fronterizas que han influido negativamente la forma de vida Ndé."

# # #

Lipan Apache Defensa de la Mujer http://lipancommunitydefense.wordpress.com/

Lipan Apache Band de http://www.lipanapachebandoftexas.com/ de Texas

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.

IBWC Approves New Border Walls Despite Flood Danger

By Scott Nicol
The U.S. half of the International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC) has finally caved under pressure from Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and approved border walls in the Rio Grande floodplain adjacent to Roma, Rio Grande City, and Los Ebanos.    

Customs and Border Protection maps of the three new Rio Grande border wall sections

These three border wall sections, totaling 14 miles, were not built when other parts of the Rio Grande Valley were walled off because of the serious danger they pose to communities on both sides of the river.  On the U.S. side they could block the exit of flood water into the Rio Grande, bottling it up in towns and farm land and exacerbating the damage that they suffer.

They could also deflect flood waters towards Mexico, worsening flooding in Mexican communities.  Deflection might even cause the river to settle into a new channel farther to the south, which would effectively change the location of the border.  

In an attempt to lessen the amount of water that these walls will deflect into Mexican cities CBP designed them to channel flood waters north into the U.S. cities that they abut.  The walls will begin close to the Rio Grande, where during a flood water would be split off from the main channel.  As the river bends the mostly straight walls get farther from them, meaning that floodwater, along with all of the debris and garbage it carries, will be channeled into properties in the United States that might otherwise be spared from flooding. 

To make certain that water is channeled into the U.S. holes were planned for the middle of two of these wall sections – a 100 foot wide gap in the Roma wall, and a 275 foot wide gap in the Rio Grande City wall – explicitly intended to direct more water into these communities during a flood.

Existing border wall slicing through the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge

All three of the new border wall sections would also slice through the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge.  Established to create a wildlife corridor along the Rio Grande, the refuge provides habitat for critically endangered ocelot and jaguarundi.  Walls that have already been erected downriver repeatedly bisect and fragment the refuge, putting the future of the terrestrial species that it harbors in doubt.  The new walls would further fragment the refuge and cut off animals from the only reliable source of water in what US Fish and Wildlife has described as “some of the best habitat(s) in the U.S. along the final portion of the Rio Grande.”

In a February 15, 2012 letter John Merino, Principal Engineer for the US section of the International Boundary and Water Commission gave CBP the green light, saying, “the USIBWC has no objection to the erection of the fence segments within the limits of the Rio Grande floodplain.”  Merino dismissed the possibility that walls would deflect or obstruct flood waters, and stated flatly that USIBWC did not examine potential environmental impacts.  He also failed to mention the fact that for the previous five years both the U.S. and Mexican halves of the bi-national International Boundary and Water Commission had rejected the idea of placing border walls in the floodplain. 

Throughout 2007 and 2008 CBP tried without success to come up with a wall design for these last three sections that would not impact flooding, and that the IBWC would therefore approve.  Unable to convince the IBWC that walls in the floodplain would not act like dams, a DHS briefing from October 2, 2008, said of these three, “DHS likely to drop fence segments.”  When CBP informed Representative Henry Cuellar a few days after the 2008 election that these border wall sections were “on hold,” Cuellar called it “a big victory” for his district.

It would have made sense for Customs and Border Protection to decide that the Roma, Rio Grande City, and Los Ebanos walls were not worth risking lives and property to build.  Or, if bureaucracy outweighed humanity in their thinking, they might have called off wall construction in order to comply with the international treaty.

They also could have based a decision to spare them on a June 2008 internal Customs and Border Protection document that stated that “The Rio Grande Valley Sector Chief has determined that operational areas that contain the PF225 fence segments such as O-1 to O-2, O-12 through O-14, and O-17 through O-21 to be in “effectively controlled” level at the current time.”  Segments O-1 and O-2 are the Roma and Rio Grande City walls. 

Segments O-12 through O-14 are in Cameron County, near Los Indios.  Segments O-17 through O-21 encompass all of the wall sections in the vicinity of Brownsville, from the neighborhoods near the River Bend Golf Course west of town past the Sabal Palms Audubon Sanctuary and the Loop family orchard to the east.  Those who live in these areas and had their property condemned for border walls lost their land for nothing, because the local Border Patrol had determined that the area already under effective control before any walls were built.

Border wall segment O-21 under construction with the Sabal Palms Audubon Sanctuary south of it

Of course decisions about who will get walls and who will be spared are made in Washington DC, not the Rio Grande Valley. 

That simple fact helps to explain why Customs and Border Protection continued to push for these walls, shifting tactics from trying to convince Mexico that walls would not worsen flooding south of the border to pushing the US section of IBWC to allow for “unilateral” action – building walls in the face of Mexican objections, and thereby violating the international treaty.

After hurricane Alex roared into the Rio Grande Valley in 2010, followed by a tropical depression, the flooding Rio Grande forced the mandatory evacuation of Los Ebanos and parts of Rio Grande City.  With homes underwater and the evacuation order still in place, CBP hosted a meeting for the USIBWC and the State Department in Washington DC. 

At the DC meeting Customs and Border Protection did not mention the ongoing floods that were inundating the sites of the proposed walls, or the Border Patrol sector chief’s assessment that the area was “effectively controlled.”  Instead, CBP said that the three remaining walls were “critical to our Nation’s security,” and since Mexico continued to insist that they posed a flood hazard “we need [US]IBWC and Department of State’s support for an unilateral decision to proceed with the fence construction.”

Throughout 2010 USIBWC consistently rejected unilateral action, pointing out the likelihood of “substantial increases in water surface elevations and deflections of flow at several points of all three projects.”

But in late 2011 USIBWC reversed itself.  John Merino, the US section’s Principal Engineer, wrote to his Mexican counterpart to say that US IBWC had “concluded that the project will not cause significant deflection or obstruction of the normal or flood flows of the Rio Grande.” 

The Mexican section of the IBWC responded in December of 2011, saying,

"...the location, alignment and design of the proposed fence represent a clear obstruction of the Rio Grande hydraulic area, since in the towns of Rio Grande City and Roma, TX, the fence would occupy nearly all of the hydraulic area on the U.S. side, causing the deflection of flows towards the Mexican side. If you consider that, given the design characteristics, the fence obstructs 60-70% of the hydraulic area in a direction perpendicular to the flow, and if you add to that the effect of the current retaining trash and debris, the significant length that is located in the floodplain, and the position of the fence relative to the direction of flow, the fence constitutes a serious obstruction and deflection of the Rio Grande flows towards Mexico. […] We reiterate our opposition to the construction of the proposed fence in the Rio Grande floodplain given the impacts stated above."

Because the IBWC is a bi-national body, the rejection of one party should have brought this project to a halt.  Instead the US half of the IBWC approved the walls, allowing Customs and Border Protection to undertake the unilateral action that it had been pushing for.  This is a clear violation of the treaty that created both the IBWC and the border that Customs and Border Protection is supposed to protect.

But a treaty is just paper.  The real harm will come after the walls go up, when the next big storm roars into the Rio Grande Valley and the river floods. 

A Wall in a River is a Dam

by Scott Nicol

In this week’s Republican debate Bachmann, Cain, and Romney each fought to prove that if elected President they would build longer, taller, and more deadly walls than their opponents. In the run up to the event, Representative Bahmann vowed that the length of her wall “will be every mile, it will be every yard, it will be every foot, it will be every inch of that border.” Not to be outdone, Herman Cain said, “It’s going to be 20 feet high. It’s going to have barbed wire on the top. It’s going to be electrified. And there’s going to be a sign on the other side saying, ‘It will kill you — Warning.’”

In an effort to please politicians by erecting mile after mile of border wall, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) continues to push for new walls in the floodplain between the Rio Grande and the Texas towns of Roma, Rio Grande City, and Los Ebanos. To convince the International Boundary Water Commission (IBWC) to go along, CBP has tried to paper over the risk of increased flooding with more than a million dollars worth of reports and flood models. Walls in the floodplain are likely to either deflect water into Mexican cities or bottle it up in U.S. ones, and so far IBWC has rejected CBP’s claims to the contrary.

Last June CBP paid Baker Engineering for yet another flood model, which was used over the summer to pressure IBWC to reverse its position. The Sierra Club recently received a copy as a result of a Freedom of Information Act request.

The new flood model makes it clear that no changes in the border walls themselves are being considered. The walls’ locations are the same as those mapped out in a Baker report from 2009. They are still designed to split flood waters, diverting a portion of the flow into these three communities. The only difference is that the newer model uses a different computer program, allowing for more detail.

In 2009 CBP did not know what type of border wall they would like to build, so Baker’s model imagined a solid slab. Now CBP says that they plan to use a bollard design, similar to the walls built to the north of the levees in Cameron county. But in Cameron county the levees would keep flood waters away from the border wall, whereas the new walls would be in the floodplain, where there are no levees, and would be inundated if the Rio Grande were swollen by a major flood.

For this report, Baker assumed that debris in the bollards would block no more than 10% - 25% of the water. That led to the conclusion that walls would have minimal impacts. But the assumption that between 75% and 90% of the water in a major flood would pass harmlessly through the wall seems to be based on wishful thinking at best, or a desire to rig the model’s results at worst.

Flooding rivers pick up large amounts of debris, from trash to trees, and carry it along until they encounter an obstruction. Bollards spaced a few inches apart may allow crystal clear water to pass through, but in a flood debris will pile up. As the debris accumulates it blocks more and more water, and the border wall acts more and more like a dam.

This should not be news to CBP. The border walls that they have already built in Arizona, and which they promised would have no impact on flooding, have caused tremendous flood damage.

On July 12, 2008, seasonal monsoon rains swept through northern Mexico and southern Arizona. In the sister cities of Nogales, Sonora and Nogales, Arizona the border wall acted as a dam. In addition to the wall built above ground it was later revealed that DHS had constructed a wall in a storm drain that passes beneath both cities without informing local officials or the International Boundary Water Commission. Water in the storm drain backed up and burst through the roof, adding to the flooding in the streets. Two people drowned, and millions of dollars of damage was sustained by Mexican businesses and residents.

The same storm caused flooding in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. CBP had stated categorically that border walls crossing washes in the monument, using a design similar to that proposed for the new South Texas sections, would be water permeable and therefore would not impact flooding. Grate openings 6 inches high and 24 inches wide that were built into the base of the wall were supposed to allow water to pass through, but they quickly became clogged with debris. The wall then acted as a dam, with water piling up behind it 2 to 7 feet deep. Backed up flood waters then traveled along the wall in search of an outlet, which was found at the Lukeville, Arizona port of entry, causing millions of dollars in damage to private and federal property.

Following this event, Baker Engineering was paid to run the length of the border wall from El Paso to San Diego and produce a report on the problems posed by the many walls that cross stream beds and washes. They documented “debris build-up which sometimes reached a height of 6 feet.” Their report concluded that, “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.”

Flood gates were installed, at a cost of over $24 million, in an attempt to prevent a repeat of the 2008 flooding. These gates are massive, and to work require Border Patrol agents to predict a flood, drive into a wash ahead of the water, throw a cable over a bar at the top of the wall, hook it to the top of the gate, and use their Jeep’s winch to pull the gate up. Then the agents need to get out of the wash and get to high ground. If they are not quick enough, they could be swept away or slammed into the wall by raging flood waters. If they manage to get out of the way they may be forced to wait on high ground between flooded washes until the waters recede.

Last August one of the sections of Arizona border wall that CBP had retrofitted with flood gates was knocked over and washed away by the force of flood waters after just over two inches of rain fell. Debris build-up had again turned the wall into a dam, just as it had in 2008. In this case, instead of following the wall to the nearest port of entry, the debris piled higher and higher the water poured over the top like a waterfall. The falling water tore away the wall’s foundation at the same time as the weight and pressure of the water pushed against the wall with increasing force. A forty-foot wide section of border wall fell.

Border Patrol spokesman Lloyd Easterling blamed the wall’s failure on human error, apparently because agents had not gone into washes ahead of the flash flood to open flood gates.

But the problem does not lie with patrol agents who cannot predict the weather, or don’t want to drive into a riverbed during a flood. The problem is higher up CBP’s command structure, with administrators who are so fixated on building walls, and thereby pleasing their superiors, that they overlook a basic fact:

A wall in a river is a dam.

It is time for Customs and Border Protection to face up to the fact that when they build walls in flood-prone areas, they may be able to ignore the impacts on paper, but not in the real world. The walls that they are pushing in Roma, Rio Grande City, and Los Ebanos will have a disastrous impact on the very homeland that they are supposed to protect. Customs and Border Protection needs to ignore political pressure and give up on these last sections of border wall, before they do any more damage.


The June 2011 flood model for walls in Roma, Rio Grande City, and Los Ebanos can be downloaded here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/68844504/June-2011-CBP-Hydrology-Report-for-Border-Wall-Sections-O-1-O-2-O-3