Last winter I discovered that the public lands (National Forests, Park, Monuments, etc) along the border are used as major highways by immigrants and drug runners. I learned the hard way, when I was looking for a camping spot in a remote area of the Chiricahua Mountains in SE Arizona. Later, while researching the problem online, I learned that our public lands (which make up 40% of the border) are literally overrun. No one denies that “U.S. border policy for decades has pushed people seeking to cross the border onto more remote, dangerous areas, which includes areas of desert that are managed by the National Park Service and other agencies (ABC News).”
Now, I am not a supporter of sending U.S. Military to help Border Patrol, but I do support getting illegals off our public lands. So, I was happy when I read an ABC News article this morning that tells about new success in this area. It may be the only Trump policy that I agree with but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that people are apprehended. From the ABC article:
Immigration arrests at U.S. national parks and other federal lands spiked dramatically this year under President Donald Trump, with some 4,010 immigration-related arrests alone since May compared to only 126 arrests in 2016, according to the Interior Department.
The figures represent a dramatic escalation in the immigration enforcement role played by the Interior Department, a federal agency better known for protecting the nation’s historic monuments and wildlife refuges.
“The fact that we were able to increase arrests by almost 4,000 percent is undeniable proof that there’s a big problem,” said Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke in a statement touting the new arrest figures. “Under the previous administration, Interior’s borderlands were basically an open door for illegal activity; and, what few law enforcement officers were down there were left unprotected and without the resources and backup needed to keep communities and themselves safe.
More than 40 percent of the land along the U.S.-Mexico border is federal land controlled by the Interior Department and U.S. Forest Service. In order to protect that land, the Interior Department employs more than 4,000 law enforcement agents – the third largest presence in the federal government.
That number includes National Park rangers and U.S. Park Police, but also federal agents from the Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, and Bureau of Indian Affairs.”
It is about time we started making our public lands safe for recreation again. Last April I spent time in Organ Pipe National Monument and in Ajo, AZ and the place is just overrun with both drug traffickers and Border Patrol vehicles. One morning driving north from the National Monument, I counted over 10 BP vehicles dashing off somewhere.
Now, we have some progress!
As for the other drama at the border, if the troops are so important in turning back the migrant caravan, why are they at Camp Donna in Texas when the migrants are near Tijuana?
