Illegal immigration and drug running have destroyed border parklands, further threatened two species on the endangered list and led federal officials to bar visitors and campers in areas considered too dangerous to visit, according to newly released reports.
In studies of two parks that make up less than 90 miles of the Arizona-Mexico border, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Park Service said that the areas have been ripped up with thousands of miles of unauthorized roads from vehicles that have crushed plants and animal habitat.
Illegal immigrant border traffic has tore up the fragile Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge.
What's more, fires started by illegals have burned hundreds of acres of forestland and mountains of drugs, trash and abandoned cars and trucks have been found.
The reports, written before the huge surge of illegal immigration in the final years of the Obama administration, were released to Secrets by Immigration Reform Law Institute, and back up the Trump administration's push for a border fencing.
The 2011 studies of the impact of illegal immigration crossings on the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument and Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge were released to IRLI under the Freedom of Information Act.
The reports reveal that when fencing is erected, human and vehicle traffic drop dramatically and help the impacted areas recover. Just last week, the nation's former top Border Patrol agent testified before a Senate committee that more recent fencing in the area cut illegal traffic 94 percent and "actually allowed for the rejuvenation of areas that had previously been devastated due to heavy illegal pedestrian and vehicular traffic."
The focus on the damage done to protected ecosystem
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment