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Mass Immigration's Toll on the Environment Object Lesson:
Coronado National Forest

In 2002, over 91,940 acres have burned in the 1.8 million acre Coronado National Forest along the Mexico border near Tucson, Arizona. More than 75 of the fires were allegedly started by humans, according to Gale Achenbrenner, Public Affairs Officer at the Coronado National Forest.

"We know that these fires were started by humans because of their location... and the type of weather," Ms. Achenbrenner said. "Warming and cooking fires built and abandoned by undocumented aliens have caused wildfires that have destroyed natural and cultural resources," according to a report for the House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations on impacts caused by illegal aliens crossing Federal lands in Southeast Arizona. This year the illegal aliens have been sticking it to the taxpayers with a $5.1 million fire fighting bill.

Fires are only one of several kinds of environmental damages to Federal lands along the border resulting from illegal immigration, according to the report. Others are:

• New roads and trails made by illegal aliens and drug smugglers, damaging vegetation and dislocating wildlife in historical sites such in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument;
• Massive amounts of human waste and garbage left behind by illegals at known pickup points pose a threat to human, plant, and animal life in the area;
• The pygmy owl and pima pineapple cactus, whose habitats are on the Federal lands have both been placed on the endangered species list;
• Repeated cutting of farmers' fences, allowing valuable cattle to wander, as well as damaging water supplies and equipment.

Many visitors no longer camp at Coronado National Forest or visit Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument due to confrontations with illegal immigrants. Recently, the number of immigrants was over 100 times the number of citizens that had legally obtained a back country permits in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument.

Massive illegal immigration has inflicted serious damage on the 516 square miles of Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, once an environmental gem. If you were to pick any point at the monument and walk three miles in any direction, you would find 9 water bottles, 7 pieces of litter, 4 tire tracks, and 4 places where major damage has been wrought, according to a recent study.

The increasing damage from illegal immigration also fuels, and is fueled by, legal immigration. Thanks to 245(i) and other amnesty programs, today's illegal alien is potentially tomorrow's legal permanent resident — a status that allows and encourages even more legal and illegal immigration in the name of cheap labor.

"Communities of recently arrived legal immigrants help create migration networks used by illegals and serve as incubators for illegal immigration, providing jobs, housing, and entree to America for illegal-alien relatives and countrymen," according to the Center for Immigration Studies. Congress recently held hearings on the damage done to border lands by illegal aliens crossing the border, yet only approved $1 million of the estimated $23.5 million needed to begin repairing the damages just on Federal lands this year. The total is expected to increase to $62.9 million in the next five years if current immigration trends continue. More evidence that Congress continues to cater to the Open Borders Lobby!

Thanks to CCN's members and activists, more and more members of Congress are hearing and responding to CCN's concerns about mass immigration-generated environmental damage. Congressman Jim Kolbe (R-AZ) said, "The damage to our federal lands caused by illegal immigration is unprecedented. It [illegal immigration] not only damages our natural and cultural resources, it also impacts our safety... " And Rep. Kolbe isn't the only member of Congress concerned about the environmental damage from immigration.

Rep. Tom Tancredo, Chairman of the House Immigration Reform Caucus, saw this impact for himself while visiting the Coronado National Forest near Tucson, Arizona: "Mass immigration — legal and illegal — has tremendous impacts on the environment."

For all the justifiable outrage against illegal immigration, reducing legal immigration is key to protecting our environment and reducing illegal immigration. Illegal immigrants are drawn to the U.S. in part because of the "magnet" of their relatives already in this country. The decade of the 1990's legal immigration averaged over one million annually and thus served as a very large "magnet" for illegal immigration.

With 80% of U.S. population growth directly attributable to mass immigration, putting us on trend to reach 500 million by 2050 and one billion by 2100, the impacts of mass immigration can only increase unless we act to stop it. Exponential population growth in the world's largest resource consumer will continue to place extreme environmental pressure on precious ecosystems in the U.S. and throughout the world. And yet the many environmental groups and big media STILL FAIL to acknowledge that mass immigration-generated population growth is swallowing our land, choking our clean air, guzzling our water supplies, exhausting our natural resources, and taking our jobs!

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Note: CCN is anti-mass immigration but NOT anti-immigrant.