Border Patrol Hindered on Protected Lands While Drug Cartels Trash Environment

Border Patrol Agent Nicholas Ivie was murdered near Naco, AZ while investigating a tripped sensor. He and two other agents were on horseback, because the area is federal land and no vehicles are allowed on wilderness lands.

The environment is apparently more important to our government than allowing our Border Patrol agents easy access to known smuggling lands. It also makes them open targets without an easy getaway.

Representative Bob Bishop, chairman of the Natural Resources Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests, and Public Lands, wrote legislation that would get rid of these roadblocks. It passed in the House on June 19. It will “prevent all unlawful entries into the United States, including entries by terrorists, other unlawful aliens, instruments of terrorism, narcotics, and other contraband through the international land borders of the United States.”

It is currently stalled in the Democrat-controlled Senate.

The Center for Biological Diversity is against this legislation because the Border Patrol could do major harm to the land, they allege. They blame the majority of the damage on the Border Patrol. They do not take into account the activity of drug smugglers, who give no thought to the well-being of the environment.

These cartels “have already cut 8,000 miles of off-road tracks into the Arizona border territory.” The Border Patrol cannot even build watchtowers or land aircraft. Yet in these same areas the smugglers have destroyed it with litter and other waste.

“Because there are restrictions on what the Border Patrol can do on federal land… this has become the corridor of choice for the criminal element coming into the United States,” Rep Bishop said.

And while the smugglers take advantage of the open land, they also trash it and cut down the wildlife like majestic cacti.