Plan for Border Fence Triggers Rights, Environmental Concerns
El Tecolote, News Report, R.M. Arrieta Posted: Jun 11, 2003
TUCSON, Ariz. -- An unlikely coalition of groups has banded together to fend off plans by the U.S. Border Patrol -- now part of the Department of Homeland Security -- to build a new fence along the U.S.-Mexico border that would seal more than three-fourths of the Arizona border.
The plan includes the addition of 255 miles of border wall; 1,000 miles of two-lane border roads, and more than 1,400 stadium lights and remote video cameras, lighting up almost 80 miles of the remote border areas 24 hours a day. Four new Border Patrol stations would house agents.
The proposed fence would be longer than even the former Berlin Wall.
Environmental, human rights, migrant and indigenous groups contend the plan would drastically affect the border's environment, including threatening several species near extinction. Also, they argue the fence would contribute to the death of more migrants by forcing them into even more treacherous terrain, and that it would divide tribal lands near the U.S.-Mexico border.
The proposed fence would cross through seven ecologically sensitive areas, ?three of which are nationally protected areas, and (which) run through the Tohono O?Odham Native American nation, whose lands are already divided by the border between Mexico and Arizona,? says Sean Garcia, Senior Associate for Mexico policy at the Latin America Working Group (LAWG), a coalition of over 60 organizations that monitor the impact of U.S. policy on human rights in Latin America.
?This plan will cause massive environmental destruction,? says environmentalist Chris Ford, formerly with the Border Action Network and currently with the Tucson Peace Action Network. Ford cites, for instance, the Sonoran Pronghorn, a small, slender and very quick mammal that resembles an antelope. The pronghorn, once plentiful, used to roam throughout the southwestern U.S. and northwestern Mexico. ?But now is ? one of the most endangered species in the world. There are only 27 left in the U.S., and only 100 in the world,? says Ford.
He explains that the Sonoran Pronghorn is what scientists call an ?indicator? species. "When the population of an ?indicator? species is in decline, that means the environment as a whole is in decline ? it indicates that the environment that it lives in is being deteriorated at a rapid pace,? says Ford.
With the massive road construction, border patrol and military helicopter activities, Ford says, the elimination and fragmentation of habitat is playing a role in bringing this species to extinction
The stadium lights will also impact the environment. ?Those high voltage lights that are in the plan are as good as a wall for nocturnal animals,? says Defenders of Wildlife associate Jenny Neeley. ?Not only that, if we put a wall up we will see ? the biological diversity we live in decline significantly. Animals have to be able to move around, especially desert-adapted animals.
She adds: ?Right now on the U.S.-Mexico border there are 47 endangered species, including the jaguar, the ocelot, the lesser long nosed bat and numerous bird species.?
The fence will also have a deadly impact on migrants, as history has already shown.
When the border was fortified in San Diego/Tijuana, El Paso/Juarez and along parts of the Arizona/Nogales border, the premise was that the move would lower the number of migrants crossing through urban areas. Migrants, the border patrol reasoned, would not risk their lives to cross in the desolate desert and mountain areas. But numbers prove otherwise. Since 1996 there have been close to 2,400 migrant deaths, according to Garcia. Mostly in the desert, rivers and mountains, from heat exposure to hypothermia.
Garcia says, in an LAWG policy statement, that the impact of such a fence on the safety of migrants could be ?devastating.? He adds, ?With the construction of new fencing, migrants who are currently entering the U.S. through Arizona would now be forced into the Sonora Desert in western Arizona or large, sparsely inhabited stretches of the Chihuahuan Desert in New Mexico,? Garcia wrote.
Right now the U.S. border proposal is in an environmental impact review, which could force the agency to look at more environmentally friendly alternatives. But, according to Garcia, ?to date, there have been no studies or any requirements to force the Border Patrol to assess the impact of such a project on the lives of migrants.
Says Neeley, ?There is no evidence that these walls solve the problems these walls are being built to solve. You could build a wall from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico and it?s still not going to help. Are we going to be one of these countries with walls around our borders??
This story was produced under the George Washington Williams Fellowship for Journalists of Color, a project sponsored by the Independent Press Association.
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