We Call for a Moratorium on Border Wall Construction

The No Border Wall Coalition announced today that they are joining together with other organizations across the country in a call for a moratorium on the construction of walls along the U.S.-Mexico border. The groups claim that the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) border wall project is politically motivated, that it will have no impact on immigration or smuggling, and will do nothing to protect the U.S. from terrorism. Yet the wall could have devastating consequences for the environment, the economy, and the communities of the border region.

The call for a moratorium comes on the eve of the primary elections in Texas, where there is vehement opposition to the border wall along the Rio Grande, the river that divides the U.S. and Mexico for 1,254 miles. The groups say that the moratorium was prompted in part by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff’s admission that no potential terrorists had ever been apprehended on the southern border. He told the New York Daily News last month, “I don't see any imminent threat" of terrorists infiltrating from Mexico. (“Michael Chertoff’s Deepest Fears: Terrorists Entering U.S. from Canada,” February 10, 2008)

The groups note, however, that DHS has frequently referred to the imminent threat of “terrorists and terrorist weapons” crossing the southern border in order to justify the breakneck speed of border wall construction. Indeed, DHS has fast-tracked the border wall project and expects to complete 370 miles of walls along the border by December of this year. The groups assert that the deadline of December 2008 is an arbitrary date timed to coincide with the last month of the Bush Administration’s period in office. This deadline, coupled with pressure from far right-wing pundits and politicians, has resulted in what the groups call “a mad rush to build the wall” without regard to any coherent operational strategy.

Citing the Border Patrol’s own statistics, they note that illegal crossing of the southern border has decreased significantly between 2006 and 2007, including a 34% decrease in the Rio Grande Valley Sector and a 46% decrease in the Del Rio Sector. Both Texas sectors are slated to get walls despite this decrease and in spite of intense local opposition. By contrast, the heavily fortified San Diego Sector, where a triple-layer wall divides the border, saw a 7% increase in illegal crossing, suggesting that walls are not a meaningful deterrent for undocumented crossers. Indeed, a June 2007 Congressional Research Service report concluded that the walls in San Diego had “no discernible impact” on the number of people entering the U.S. illegally (“Border Security: Barriers Along the U.S. International Border,” updated June 5, 2007). Border Patrol has also stated repeatedly that a wall only slows crossers down by a few minutes, rather than stopping them.

The groups are also calling for an immediate suspension and repeal of section 102 of the Real ID Act of 2005, which gives Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff the power to waive all laws in order to build the border wall without regard to the negative consequences it will have in the border region. The groups say that such power concentrated in the hands of an unelected official makes a mockery of Democratic processes and places border residents under an undue burden, denying them the same legal protections afforded the rest of America. Secretary Chertoff has invoked this unprecedented power three times in order to build walls in California and Arizona, waiving a host of laws in their entirety, including the Endangered Species Act, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Coastal Zone Management Act, the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, and the National Historic Preservation Act. Texas border resident Scott Nicol said of Chertoff’s waivers, “The only reason to waive the laws is because you intend to break them.”

The Real ID Act also denies individuals and organizations the right to sue DHS for the damages the border wall will cause, limiting lawsuits only to those based on constitutional grounds. Thus, Chertoff can use the waiver provision as a trump card in the face of almost any legal challenge. The groups claim that this has had a chilling effect on those individuals and entities that have a legitimate case against DHS and has permitted the agency to disregard public safety, environmental protection, and humanitarian concerns whether or not a waiver is formally invoked.

In the hurricane-prone Lower Rio Grande Valley of South Texas, the border wall is planned to be constructed on or near the flood control levees that line the bank of the Rio Grande. A levee-wall is also planned for Presidio, Texas in Big Bend. Yet, there have been no studies published that describe what impact the proposed wall would have on flooding or on the integrity of the levee system.

The desertlands of Arizona and the neighboring Mexican state of Sonora are home to the federally endangered Sonoran pronghorn, which must travel great distances back and forth across the border in search of water and forage. In recent years, they have bounced back from the brink of extinction thanks to a federal recovery program. Though miles of wall cutting across their range could have grave consequences for their survival, the wall is going up in Arizona with little analysis of these consequences.

DHS has continued to operate under the false assumption that the harsh conditions of the desert are a deterrent for people seeking entry into the U.S. As DHS build walls in populated areas, desperation drives more people into remote desert areas where they are more likely to die from dehydration and exposure. The General Accounting Office found that as walls have gone up, the number of people who have died attempting to enter the U.S. doubled between 1995 and 2005 (“Border-Crossing Deaths Have Doubled Since 1995,” August 2006). This is an ongoing humanitarian crisis that requires an immediate solution.

The groups note that the border wall is meant to be a permanent structure that will therefore have permanent consequences, and assert that it is irresponsible to erect the wall without full knowledge of what those consequences will be. DHS is pushing ahead with a timeline that is based solely on election year politics. DHS’s blind rush to draw lines on a map, heedless of the consequences on the ground, makes a moratorium on border wall construction imperative. The groups call upon Congress to take the time to evaluate the serious costs of the border wall and to determine whether it is in fact the best way to address the complex issues of immigration and national security.

Blatant Bias in the Border Wall Environmental Impact Statement

The Department of Homeland Security intends to break ground on the border wall in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas in the spring of 2008. Seventy miles of wall are planned to cut across the Valley from Roma to Brownsville. In preparation for this enormous and expensive project, DHS has prepared a Draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). Unfortunately, the document, prepared by the private contractor e²M, is not an objective study as required by environmental regulations, but an enthusiastic endorsement of the border wall. It erroneously claims that a border wall will stop illegal immigration and keep the United States safe from terrorism. And it downplays the damage a wall will cause to the communities, farms and natural areas of the Rio Grande Valley and to our nation as a whole.


Texas State Rep. Kino Flores at the La Lomita No Border Wall Festival

To comply with the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA), Environmental Impact Statements must present an objective, unbiased overview of the impacts that a course of action will have on both the human and natural environments. This information is used by decision makers to evaluate whether the costs of an action outweigh its intended benefits. In the regulations that govern Environmental Impact Statements the Council on Environmental Quality clearly states, “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)

The Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the Rio Grande Valley border wall ignores this regulation. Rather than objectively evaluating all of the negative impacts that a wall will have in South Texas, it repeatedly presents Department of Homeland Security justifications for the wall as facts without any corroborating evidence. It assumes that the border wall will be a resounding success, and that Texas and the other 49 states will reap the benefits. One passage in particular promotes this idea:

“The cumulative impacts of USBP activities to reduce the flow of illegal drugs, terrorists, and terrorist weapons into the United States and the concomitant effects upon the Nation’s health and economy, drug-related crimes, community cohesion, property values, and traditional family values would be long-term and beneficial, both nationally and locally. Residents of the border towns would benefit from increased security, a reduction in illegal drug-smuggling activities and the number of violent crimes, less damage to and loss of personal property, and less financial burden for entitlement programs. This would be accompanied by the concomitant benefits of reduced enforcement and insurance costs.” (5.11.17)

This reads like a sales pitch, not an unbiased assessment. No evidence is presented to back up any of these claims. But the words used to frame the first sentence, “The cumulative impacts… would be long-term and beneficial” employ precisely the same language that is used elsewhere to evaluate scientifically quantifiable impacts.

In an effective ad campaign it is important to inflate the positive aspects of the product and minimize or ignore the negative. If you go to a used car lot, you know that the sales person is going to tell you that the car has A/C, but probably won’t mention the rust in the wheel wells. The claims made in the Draft EIS should be viewed with the same level of skepticism. A prime example of this is the repeated use of terrorism as a justification for building the wall. Since no terrorists or terrorist weapons have ever entered the United States by crossing the southern border, the border wall cannot possibly “reduce their flow” into the U.S. How can they go below zero?

The United States - Canada border at Beebe Vermont / Quebec

Illegal drugs, on the other hand, do cross the southern border into the United States. However, no data is presented in the Draft EIS to support the assertion that building 70 miles of wall in 21 separate sections along our 1,933 mile long southern border, while ignoring the 3,987 mile long northern border and 12,479 miles of coastline, will in any way impact “drug-related crimes… both nationally and locally.” There have been walls along the southern border near San Diego for over a decade, but according to the Border Patrol nearly 33% of the drugs that they confiscated in 2006 came through the San Diego sector, up from 24% the previous year. The border wall has apparently failed to bring about a “reduction in illegal drug-smuggling activities” in southern California.

The statement that the border wall’s impact upon “community cohesion, property values, and traditional family values would be long-term and beneficial” falls somewhere between George Orwell and Alice in Wonderland. How does one objectively measure “community cohesion” or “traditional family values?” This statement sounds more like a presidential candidate’s stump speech than an unbiased evaluation of the facts, and it is directly contradicted by an earlier passage in the same Draft EIS:

“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)

How will the “dislocation of some families” and the removal of houses have a beneficial impact on “community cohesion, property values, and traditional family values?” Wouldn’t bulldozing a house lower the property’s value? Is homelessness now a “traditional family value?” At least there is the tepid admission that evicting families from their homes and lands “could be disruptive”, particularly for families that have occupied plots of land for many generations. In some instances ownership stretches back to the Spanish land grants of the 1760’s. Removing families with such deep roots will destroy “community cohesion”, no matter what definition of the term the writers of the Draft EIS want to use. But even in this statement the negative impacts are downplayed. When a family is evicted from their home and the building is knocked down, the impacts are certainly not “indirect”, and they are by no means “minor to moderate.”

Construction of the Berlin Wall - "community cohesion" in the making

Not only are the claims that those border residents who don’t have their homes bulldozed will see a reduction in violent crime, less damage to private property, and lower entitlement program costs made without any empirical evidence, they run counter to the evidence that does exist. All of the imagined benefits of the border wall flow from the baseless assumption that if sections of border wall are built in the Rio Grande Valley they will stop illegal traffic from coming across. They will not. In its June 5, 2007 report Border Security: Barriers Along the U.S. International Border the Congressional Research Service concluded that the border wall “did not have a discernible impact on the influx of unauthorized aliens coming across the border in San Diego.” The San Diego wall consists of two parallel walls, the first made of steel slabs and the second made of steel mesh, each 16 feet tall. Between them there is a cleared area 100 feet wide with a graded patrol road and light and camera towers. This is much more than is proposed for the Rio Grande Valley by the Draft EIS, yet it is claimed that the Texas border wall will be much more effective than the walls near San Diego.

In searching for justifications for the border wall the private contractor that wrote the Draft Environmental Impact Statement was very selective about what information was included and what was left out. Even the words of their client were excluded when they failed to provide a ringing endorsement of the wall’s effectiveness. Discussing the border wall in July, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said,

“Fencing is not the cure-all for the problem at the border. I think the fence has come to assume a certain kind of symbolic significance which should not obscure the fact that it is a much more complicated problem than putting up a fence which someone can climb over with a ladder or tunnel under with a shovel.”

Coming from the man who recently threatened to condemn people’s homes if they refused access to surveyors, this is a telling comment. The fact that it is not reflected anywhere in the Draft EIS shows just how biased it is.

The Border Wall between San Diego and Tijuana

Border residents and the rest of America deserve more than a sales pitch. There must be a full accounting of the effects of the border wall before construction begins. Rather than issuing a Final Environmental Impact Statement in January, a new Draft EIS that even-handedly evaluates the impacts that the border wall will have should be prepared. Bias and unfounded statements should be replaced with solid facts. Information that was left out of the Draft EIS, such as the exact number of homes that will be bulldozed, what will happen in the event of a hurricane or major flood, and what measures will be taken to ensure that endangered species are not driven to extinction, should be included. Anything less would be a violation of the National Environmental Policy Act, and would represent a tremendous disservice to the American people.

Border Walls Will Not Protect Texas From Terrorists

On the first page of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the 70 miles of border wall that are scheduled to be built in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley in the spring, it states, “The mission of CBP [Customs and Border Patrol] is to prevent terrorists and terrorist weapons from entering the United States, while also facilitating the flow of legitimate trade and travel.” (ES-1) Building the wall will allegedly aid them in this narrow goal by, “preventing terrorists and terrorist weapons from entering the United States.” (ES-2) The phrase “terrorists and terrorist weapons” is used over and over, showing up more frequently than references to drug-smuggling or undocumented immigrants. The pre-9/11 functions of the Border Patrol seem to have faded into the background, despite the fact that no terrorists or terrorist weapons have ever come across our southern border.

The assertion that the border wall will make our nation safer is absurd. While the Draft EIS makes grand claims for the efficacy of the border wall, spokespersons for DHS and the Border Patrol describe it much more modestly. Del Rio, Texas, Border Patrol Chief Randy Hill said, “We're going to see steel barriers erected on the borders where U.S. and Mexican cities adjoin. These will slow down illegal crossers by minutes.” Not “prevent terrorists and terrorist weapons from entering the United States,” or prevent anyone or anything else from entering the United States, but “slow down illegal crossers by minutes.” Rather than preventing the next 9/11, the Department of Homeland Security is building a $46 billion dollar speed bump.

If a border wall had stretched from sea to shining sea before September 11, 2001, it would have made no difference to the terrorists. None of the hijackers came into the United States across a land border. Instead, according to the 9/11 Commission, the 19 hijackers applied for and received visas which allowed them to enter and reenter the U.S. 33 times. Each time they came in through an airport, not by land. Only one terrorist is known to have tried to come into our nation by crossing a land border. He was the Millenium Bomber, caught trying to bring explosives across the Canadian border. To reach the nearest border wall, just south of San Diego on the U.S.-Mexico border, he would have needed to drive another 1,257 miles.

The Draft EIS for “Tactical Infrastructure” in the Rio Grande Valley also includes a “No Action” alternative, but dismisses it with the statement, “The No Action Alternative would not meet USBP mission or operational needs.” (ES-2) There is no further explanation as to why it would not meet these needs. This is striking because if one were to look objectively at the facts, it would appear that the needs of the stated USBP mission are currently being met without border walls. No terrorists or terrorist weapons have come across the border in the Rio Grande Valley. More strikingly, the number of illegal crossers apprehended by the Border Patrol in the Rio Grande Valley dropped by 34% in 2007, bringing apprehensions in the area to a 15 year low.

Rather than analyze the Rio Grande Valley’s success, the Department of Homeland Security is poised to impose upon it a border wall that will cost billions and necessitate “the demolition of buildings and structures within the proposed project corridor” (4.11.38) and “the loss of approximately 150 acres of potential ocelot and jaguarundi habitat” (5.8.15), but will not stop border crossers. Despite the Draft EIS's repeated mantra of “prevent terrorists and terrorist weapons”, Chertoff is building the wall to placate xenophobic politicians like Hunter and Tancredo, not to help the Border Patrol do its job. Railing against immigrants and trumpeting the border wall helps them cling to dreams of reaching the White House because no one listens to anything else that they say. They know that the border wall will not protect Texas or the United States from terrorists; it is a politician's prop that only provides a false sense of security.