GOODY TWO SHOES: Illegal Immigration Discombobulates Environmentalists
The Washington Times reports that illegal immigration is wreaking ecological devastation in the Arizona desert, but that environmentalists are loathe to support border control laws or measures for fear of alienating their politically correct donors and supporters. Instead, they blame immigration agents for forcing illegal border crossers to abandon roads and highways and tramp through the desert, leaving behind hundreds of thousands of tons of trash:
Immigration is now the primary factor in U.S. population growth, which drives such environmental woes as housing sprawl, pollution and traffic.
But don't expect your local Green Party activist to grab a lawn chair and join the Minutemen border patrols any time soon: The mainstream environmental movement is firmly and uniformly agnostic on the issue.
"We've never taken a position pro or con on immigration," Sierra Club spokesman Eric Antebi said.
"We don't have the expertise to deal with that [illegal immigration]," Wilderness Society spokesman Ben Beach said.
These responses exasperate environmentalists such as Dick Lamm, the former Democratic governor of Colorado and a 30-year member of the Sierra Club. …
"The environmental movement refuses to acknowledge that immigration and population are environmental issues," Mr. Lamm said. …
"Because it's such a charged issue in this country, it's hard to get involved without getting caught in the crossfire," Mr. Antebi said. "We have a history of working with a large number of constituencies, and we want to continue to work with them. ...
One issue that could pull the environmental community back into the immigration debate is the degradation at the border. The Bureau of Land Management estimates that only 1 percent of the 25 million tons of garbage left in the Southern Arizona desert has been hauled off since 2002. ...
"The trash problem is staggering, to say the least," said Defenders of Life's Miss Neeley, whose group has been active in cleanup efforts. "If you've seen it, it's almost surreal." …
Instead of calling for a clampdown on illegal immigration, both groups have stern words for the U.S. Border Patrol, calling on the agency to make a stronger commitment to environmental protection. …
The blame-the-Border Patrol response exasperates agency spokesman Gus Soto, who suggests that the illegal aliens, drug smugglers and human smugglers bear greater responsibility for the damage than its officers.
"Unfortunately, they do choose to point the finger at us, but you have to remember, we're not the ones out there crossing. We're not the ones out there creating roads. We're trying to stop the smuggling industry," Mr. Soto said.
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