Border Threats, circa 1919

This isn't the first time Americans have freaked out from essentially non-existent threats to national security crossing the Mexican border.

This New York Times article from November 24, 1919 might as well come from 2010 with a few words changed. In 1919, American leaders were freaking out about radicals and Chinese crossing the Mexican border into the United States and threatening our national institutions. Of course, this proved to be vastly overblown--people were crossing the border illegally, but to work, not to assassinate the president. Today, people are also crossing the border and again, they are crossing to work. We laugh at our ancestors worries from 90 years ago; in 90 years, Americans may well shake their head at our actions today.

Sinking Rivers, Dams, and Future Environmental Disasters

One more reason dams are not the solution to energy needs:

Most of the world's major river deltas are sinking, increasing the flood risk faced by hundreds of millions of people, scientists report.

Damming and diverting rivers means that much less sediment now reaches many delta areas, while extraction of gas and groundwater also lowers the land.

Rivers affected include the Colorado, Nile, Pearl, Rhone and Yangtze.

Others include the Rio Sao Francisco in Brazil, and the Colorado river. The former is no major surprise; Brazil continues to look to dams (and nuclear energy) as its energy source for the forseeable future, rather than turning to better environmental energy sources like solar and wind power. As for the Colorado, it's particularly problematic for Mexico, because while the delta of the Colorado runs off in Mexico, the U.S. dams and diverts much of the water for its own sources. It would be nice if the U.S. and Mexico could come to some sort of agreement that would witness more equitable water management, but that just won't happen; Mexico doesn't have the international presence of say a Brazil or a China, and there's so little of the river that runs through Mexico that the U.S. probably feels it has the right to all that water; what happens to Mexicans who live near the delta and who will be most impacted by the sinking river basin is of little importance to us. It's harsh, and it's ugly, but that's just how the U.S. thinks and has thought for years when it comes to shared water resources with our southern neighbor, and I don't see it improving any time soon.

More Border Fence Stupidity

Again, the border fence is a terrible idea.

This story discusses how the Sabal Palm Audubon Center in Brownsville is basically going to end up in Mexico since the wall will be built north of it. Let me reiterate, this wall is going to do NOTHING to stop illegal immigration. And yet again, I'll say that most people on the border oppose the wall because they know that it is completely worthless. By all accounts, this is a very neat place in a very poor area. I will be visiting this area on Memorial Day weekend and I plan on going to Sabal Palm. I might as well see it while it is of value for conservation.

It's also worth noting that poor people in this country have almost no access to natural places. This border fence is not only an environmental disaster, but of course, it is also a structure of racism. Moreover, it is an example of environmental injustice, as it clearly prioritizes the desire of white people in Nebraska to feel that this is still a white country over the actual needs of local residents to experience something other than a degraded urban nature.

To top it off, it's not even necessary to build a fence in this area. As the article states:

A decade ago, he says, federal agents intercepted hundreds of illegal immigrants a month on Sabal Palm grounds. But as border security increased, and as patterns changed, the number of interceptions dropped dramatically. Now, he says, not even 20 a month are caught, with very few carrying contraband like marijuana.

Of all the stupid ideas of the Bush Administration, the border fence may actually be the stupidest. And that is really saying something.

The Border Fence: An Exercise in Stupidity

I really hope that the next president lets the border fence idea die. It's so incredibly stupid. Republicans, in particular Mitt Romney, are finding that attacking immigration is a losing strategy. The border fence is completely pointless and is opposed by a vast majority of people living on the border, whether Republican or Democratic, white or Latino. Why do they oppose it? Because they know that it is utterly worthless. As Arizona governor (and hopefully a finalist for the Democratic vice-presidential nomination) Janet Napolitano has stated repeatedly, you can build a 12 foot fence, but people will climb it with 13 foot ladders. That is absolutely true.

Attacking immigration isn't about national security. It's not about terrorism. It's not about saving American jobs. It's about keeping brown people out of the country. The fence is being built for no practical reason, but because it is popular with conservative white voters in Nebraska, Iowa, and North Carolina--states that are all of a sudden seeing Latino immigration.

Certainly those on the border are as concerned about security as anyone else. They are the ones who actually deal with the drugs that cross everyday. They have to pick up the trash the migrants leave on their property. They have to deal with the crime that our idiotic immigration policy leads to. And they know that the fence won't make a damn bit of difference in stopping this.

The fence is an environmental disaster, as I and many others have discussed previously. Moreover, the fence is a classic top-down idea from the federal government that completely ignores conditions on the ground. And people on the border are not happy, as this Times article shows. The fence will cut across people's property, cutting them off from their family land and destroying their property values. In response, the government has started making adjustments, but each change makes the idea even more absurd. Now there are supposed to be gates in the fence. They are also going to have the fence start and stop in various places, leading one woman in the article to point out that part of her house would be on the fence and part would not. Great.

What is going to happen if the fence is built? It will drive immigrants into ever more remote areas of the border, leading to higher rates of death on the crossing. It will undermine habitat for many animals, particularly the jaguar which is reappearing in the mountains on the Arizona-New Mexico border just north of the international boundary. It will lead to more tunnels under the border and ladders over the fence. It will lead to local people finding ways to just ignore the thing. I have personally talked to a rancher on the US side of the border who openly admitted to cutting a hole in the fence so that he and ranchers on the Mexican side can exchange cattle when they wander across. That is not going to change.

The border fence is just a stupid idea. It accomplishes nothing good. It's expensive, environmentally damaging, and opposed by almost everyone who lives on the border. Can we just drop the whole idea and instead come up with an immigration policy that is actually useful?

Michael Chertoff Sucks

Two days ago, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced that he was ignoring all sorts of environmental laws to build a border fence across Arizona's San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area.


To make this more absurd, Chertoff actually invokes environmentalism to bolster his point, claiming that immigrants are damaging the environment through their garbage.


Look, I was on the Arizona-Sonora border this summer. I was on multiple ranches immediately on both sides. I saw the trails immigrants use. Is there trash? Sure and it sucks. Is this trash a major environmental problem? I don't know that I would go that far. It does make riparian areas kind of unpleasant. Sometimes they contaminate water through human waste. Is it an equally environmentally damaging as the wall? Uh, no.

No one on the border even wants the damn wall. It exists to make Republicans in the heartland who have never been close to the border feel secure that this will remain a white nation. Even Republicans on the border oppose it. Not only will it do nothing to stop immigration, but it prevents wildlife from travelling along its natural habitats. The US-Mexico border serves as the northern limit of many species habitat, including the jaguar. With environmental protections in Mexico limited, the US land may be necessary for maintaining populations for these species.

Homeland Security has the right to do anything to the environment to do their business. Among the laws HS is ignoring are the Endangered Species Act, the Toxic Waste Disposal Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

And for what? To make white people in Nebraska and Alabama feel better about themselves.


Via Glenn Hurowitz at Grist. Hurowitz has been writing other interesting posts about environmentalism and the border as well.

Infuriating Hypocrisy from the Bush Administration

OK, Michael Chertoff. If you want to defend a border fence between the U.S. and Mexico on the Orwellian grounds of security, fine. If you want to rely on two-faced appeals of defense for the national economy (even as jobs continue to be outsourced) as a means to justify said fence, do so. Hell, if you want to come out and just say, "you know, we're just racists here in this administration, and the brown, Mexican threat scares us SO!", I'd be fine with that. But you have no room to complain about the "environmental degradation" border-crossers cause when you work for the administration that has one of the worst environmental records ever.

Links: Films and Politics

A few links for today.

First, a big RIP for Ulrich Muehe. Muehe shined in The Lives of Others. Sad to see him die so young.

Barba de Chiva discusses Maquilapolis, a film that puts together footage of Tijuana women activists filming their own lives and living conditions. This sounds like a must see if it comes around. Most people simply don't care what happens to the people who make their consumer products. I suspect showing this film as widely as possible might help change that.

Finally, I fully agree with Ilan Goldberg getting after Joe Biden for claiming that he is the only Senator who supports the troops because he voted for the Iraq supplemental funding bill. Biden has always been happy to use the Right's language for his own purposes. But by doing so, he legitimizes the idea that people who don't fund the war don't support the troops. That is, of course, hogwash.