Pubdate: Tue, 10 Sep 2002
Source: Arizona Daily Star (AZ)
Copyright: 2002 Pulitzer Publishing Co.
Contact:  http://www.azstarnet.com/star/today/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/23

A PERILOUS BORDER

The sad irony in the chaos of illegal drug running and immigration along 
Arizona's southern border is that the fragile lands where border crossers 
die by the hundreds are imperiled, too.

Nothing along the 372-mile border with Mexico is safe - not the plants, not 
the people, not the wildlife and certainly not the delicate areas set aside 
as desert parks.

When wave upon wave of people rush the border to find work, or when they 
skulk along remote areas ferrying illegal drugs, they cause many more 
problems than simply eluding law enforcement.

The Star's Mitch Tobin, in a two-day series called "Our Perilous Public 
Lands," documented the damage to the environment caused by the thousands of 
illegal border crossers.

It is truly a page out of the Old West. Arizona's border is where a park 
ranger died when he was caught in a gunfight that originated in Mexico. And 
where the number of dead illegal entrants approaches 150 - killed by the 
heat of summer that routinely claims the foolishly brave.

Illegal entrants are believed responsible for the disappearance of the 
endangered pygmy owl in Organ Pipe National Monument. They threaten the 
endangered Pima pineapple cactus, trample the endangered Huachuca water 
umbel at the Leslie Canyon Wildlife Refuge near Douglas. And they start 
wildfires.

The wildlife refuge is so sensitive that the public is not allowed to 
enter. Border crossers, though, trample, urinate and defecate there with 
impunity.

And they think nothing of cutting their own roads through desert lands that 
will take decades to heal.

Neither the border crossers, law enforcement personnel nor the recreational 
users of the land dare consider themselves safe in this lawless climate.

These scenarios are very much like the complaints of the residents of 
Douglas a few years back. When night settled on the town, scores of people 
crossing the border illegally so frightened residents that they refused to 
leave their homes. Ranchers took to policing their grazing lands when the 
garbage left by the border crossers accumulated to unbearable levels.

We residents of the state have to ask ourselves if we have been forgotten 
by the very government that created most of the problems. Surely our 
elected representatives have had the dots connected for them. That is, they 
must know that the policies enacted in Washington have a direct effect 
right here in our deserts. They must understand that squeezing borders in 
Texas and California does not eliminate the numbers of crossers, but 
intensifies their numbers in our merciless deserts. And that shortchanging 
the public lands personnel puts them in danger as well.

This newspaper has long called for a guest-worker program to lessen the 
numbers of illegal crossers who defile the desert and drop dead in the 
heat. It's an economic as well as a humane argument.

The solution can come only from Congress and the president. Yet neither 
have shown any hurry to alleviate the border dangers. There is no political 
return in acting as advocate for a porous border or illegal entrants.

As for drug runners, there should be no mercy for the kingpins who smuggle 
drugs. That said, this country must come to terms with the insatiable 
appetite for drugs that fuel the illegal crossings, make criminals of 
public servants and increase crime rates on our streets. And it must 
understand that if drugs cross easily, surely terrorism can, too.

As long as border crossers endanger themselves, law enforcement and the 
land, Congress will have to find solutions to allow their legal and safe entry.
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MAP posted-by: Beth