But the U.S. border sees the Patrol River as a natural gateway to drug smuggling and illegal immigration to the United States.
In the weak days of the Trump administration, construction crews are rapidly building a 30-foot high steel bollard-style wall along the river. In general, the only sound you hear is that of the wind blowing over the golden leaves. The creaking sound of construction crews is heard as you head towards the place like these days.
Environmentalists say the work disrupts migration patterns that rely on the river.
Customs and Border Protection say border wall projects have gone through “environmental stewardship schemes” to analyze and mitigate the environmental impact in the area where construction is taking place. And that part of the environmental impact analysis includes a study of how wildlife can be affected by projects.
Before President-elect Joe Biden takes office on January 20, as many miles as possible are part of the final work to complete the border wall.
By December 18, according to Customs and Border Protection, the construction crew had completed the 438-mile boundary wall from January 2017. Last year, the Trump administration pledged to complete 450 miles by the end of 2020, a week from now. U.S. According to Army Corps Engineers engineers, there are 37 border wall construction projects in motion with various border issues in Mexico.
This summer, Byden said under his watch “the other leg of the wall will not be built in my administration.”
Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council, the union that represents border patrol agents, celebrates the construction and hopes that the work started by Trida will be completed by Baden.
“You have to secure the border to win the trust and favor of the American people,” Jude said. “I really hope the Biden administration pays attention to this and sees how effective this has been and re-evaluates their position on the wall.”
Judd also argues that the environmental concern on the border wall is “overbolen” and that it has not harmed the construction environment.
Danger of wildlife migration
Environmentalists and other activists could not disagree more.
Cate Sk Director, Executive Director and President of the Madrian Archipelago Lego Wildlife Center, sees wall construction as a disruptive threat to wildlife that relies on migration from the desert region.
“I have a huge pain in my heart,” Scott said. “It’s like running my heart’s partnership because the river should be allowed, and this shouldn’t be a monopoly. This is a wall of shame.”
Scott watched as construction crews welded parts of the steel boundary wall that now stretches along the width of the San Pedro River. The wall will be equipped with a large door that can swing open during the region’s summer monsoons. Each steel boulder is just a few inches apart.
When heavy rains come, the river can quickly and rapidly turn into overgrown trees and natural debris. The gates are supposed to allow river water to flow without damaging the construction.
John Manel, a customs and border protection public affairs expert, said the agency was working to find spots on the border wall where “small wildlife routes” could be created, “which would support wildlife migration without compromising border security.”
When he takes power, Biden’s administration will have to face not only the construction of the wall by activists, but also the call to tear it down, especially in environmentally sensitive areas.
“This (wall) has to go. That’s the way it is. This is very wrong for the environment, for people who need to move back and forth, it’s also wrong.”
“This is bizarre and a waste of money,” Kurke wrote in a Twitter post earlier this month as he blamed the blast on the Guadalupe Canyon in Arizona, another location designated by the administration for the wall.
But looking at that blast site on the canyon from a high point, Border Patrol Agent Daniel Hernandez defended the construction of these large projects in some very remote areas of the southern border.
The wall is “ultimately not all, be all,” Hernandez said, but it is part of a border defense system that includes ground boots as well as inspection and surveillance technology. The wall slows down smugglers and migrants and gives agents more time to respond, he said.
“We know it will be effective,” Hernandez said. “A large part of the infrastructure here in Southern Arizona is important to us. We’ve seen other projects like this and reduced and slowed down some of the traffic for us.”
‘This thing is catastrophic’
But activists argue that the construction basically damages the landscape and culture of the entire border region, such as the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Arizona, about 275 miles west of Guadalupe Canyon.
At the same site, Lichen Jordahl and others at the Center for Biodiversity are warning about the construction by this national park in the middle of the Sonoran desert.
This work is replacing the barriers of steel vehicles at the international border. Environmentalists warn that the construction will restrict the intensity of animals moving freely and reaching the Quitobacito springs, which Jordahl says is the largest source of water up to 50 miles in any direction.
“This thing is a disaster,” Jordahl told CNN. “This wall will do nothing to secure the border, but it will destroy this incredible national park. It will kill the wildlife in the area.”
Earlier this year, construction crews detonated explosives through a section of the national park, which was honored by the Tohono’odham Nation.
The Native American tribe says it is a ancestral cemetery and a final resting place for many of its ancestors.
Border patrol officials say external environmental and archaeological monitors are monitoring construction at the site. Roy Villarreal, a former chief border patrol agent in the Tucson sector, wrote on Twitter in February that workers “have not found any burial grounds or are in a limited detention zone.”
The CBP says it is “committed to the protection of the country’s cultural and natural resources.” The agency says it has met with residents regularly during the process
Border change
The last decades have seen a change in people with border assets.
Jim Chilton is filled with a long, barbed wire fence that divides part of him from Mexico. He wants to run this point at home that this fence is not enough.
Chilton said he also offered the federal government its 10 acres of land as the next operating operating base. “I offered him a dollar a year. I told him I would give you a dollar if you didn’t get a dollar.”
For many years Chilton says he has set up cameras around his property and captures a thousand images of what he said are smugglers striking from his mountain range.
The 81-year-old is a fifth-generation pastoralist. He says his ancestors drove cattle from Texas to the area in 1885. Chilton says he lobbied for many years to build a border wall on his land, but construction has not been approved.
But he says he is happy that the construction of the border wall is moving closer to his property.
“We need to secure our borders and we need to have a legal route to get good people into the country,” Chilton said. “We need immigrants. Immigrants are the beautiful life of our country and we need a legal way to bring them inside.”
When Kelly Kimbro sees the construction crew plant rust-colored steel Bollard border walls at the edge of her ranch – east of Chilton’s land – she always thinks her father stumbled upon something in 1978 that they had never seen before. . After being shown by local officials, he said they realized it was a huge bundle of marijuana.
“We didn’t know what it was,” said Kimbro, 2, as she slammed into the back of the 1992 Ford F-350 in her southeastern Arizona border bed.
Forty-two years later, the same site serves as a staging ground for construction crews building a boundary wall in the valley.
Since awakening border security earlier that day, Kimbro has slowly and dramatically transformed this ancient landscape from every passing presidential administration.
Kimbro would not have imagined how fast the idea of border security would develop. For almost a year, she has witnessed construction crews systematically rectify the steel border wall across the San Bernardino Valley, where her family has been running for generations.
“It’s too bad for America. It’s so bad that we’re like a laughing stock, because it won’t work,” said Kimbro, who believes the wall won’t stop the flow of drugs and people.
Kimbro’s 15,000-acre area sits on a four-mile international boundary line. She says the construction staging ground consumes the lower part of her livestock. The quiet peace of this desert border is disturbed by the roaring engines of construction trucks and heavy machinery.
Kimbro says his family did not protest years ago when the federal government introduced barriers to steel Normandy vehicles. They invited Border Patrol to install two surveillance camera towers on their property, she says.
But, in Kimbro’s view, the wall is meaningless. “We are 100% for border security, don’t get us wrong,” Kimbro said. “I promise you it will not protect this country better than it already does. The Border Patrol has done it.”
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