Border wall would be ‘death knell’ for U.S. jaguars

The Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity sued the Trump administration on Wednesday in an attempt to halt border wall construction in the San Rafael Valley in Southern Arizona.

Over the summer, federal officials began the legal groundwork to build
nearly 27 miles of new border wall, cleaving through what environmental
groups called a “biological hotspot” that serves as a migration corridor
for dozens of species and contains the headwaters of the Santa Cruz River.

In a 37-page complaint filed in federal court Wednesday, attorney
Anchun Jean Su alleged Noem’s use of the waiver “violates the foundational
principle of the separation of powers rooted in the U.S. Constitution.” 

The Center for Biological Diversity was joined by Conservation CATalyst, an advocacy organization focused on saving the northern jaguar and ocelots.

Su wrote the new border wall project would “cleave through
the San Rafael Valley and greater Sky Islands region, which is
world-renowned for its immense and unique biodiversity.”

“The Trump administration is unconstitutionally running roughshod
over our bedrock environmental protections to build his cruel, senseless
border wall,” Su said in a published statement. “A 30-foot wall will
stop majestic jaguars and other endangered animals dead in their tracks,
so they’ll likely disappear from the U.S.”

“Trump’s dangerous
obsession with walls and militarization will slash a permanent scar
across one of the most biodiverse regions on the continent,” she said.
“We’re suing to stop Trump’s reckless abuse of power and prevent
bulldozers from destroying this spectacular Sky Islands region and the
animals who depend on it.”

In April, the Tucson Sentinel broke the news that CBP officials were
seeking to build a new barrier near the Border Patrol’s Sonoita station,
closing a gap that starts near Border Monument 102 and extends west for
nearly 25 miles.

Since then, federal officials have begun the ground work to build the new wall.

In June, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem waived dozens of environmental laws to build the new wall, which will include 30-foot high steel bollards, each one six-inches square and spaced just four inches apart. The wall will begin east of Nogales in the Patagonia Mountains and run straight across the valley to the Coronado National Monument, about 15 miles south of Sierra Vista, Ariz.

The border is currently defended by a mix of Normandy-style vehicle barriers, barbed wire and screen fencing, however, the Trump administration has pushed hard to close the entire Arizona-Mexico border, even as apprehensions have effectively collapsed, and there are few signs of people attempting to illegally cross through the valley.

In a document published to the federal
register, Noem waived federal laws for two new sections: one will begin
at Border Monument 121 and run to Border Monument 117, while the other
will start at Monument 99 and extend west along the border for
approximately 33.4 miles.

The monuments are a series of concrete
obelisks which help mark the U.S.-Mexico border. The new plan will
include Monument 102, which sits at the base of the Arizona Trail near
Montezuma Canyon Road, about 70 miles southwest of Tucson.

“There
is presently an acute and immediate need to construct additional
physical barriers and roads in the vicinity of the border of the United
States in order to prevent unlawful entries into the United States in
the project area,” Noem claimed.

A few weeks later,  Fisher Sand
& Gravel, was awarded a $309 million contract to build the wall,
funded by a 2021 congressional appropriation.

Fisher Sand &
Gravel, a North Dakota-based company, built projects across the
Arizona-Mexico border during the first Trump administration after its
head Tommy Fisher pushed hard to convince Trump and other officials to
grant wall contracts to his company using donations to House Republicans
and his involvement in the construction of a private border wall near
Sunland Park, N.M.

That project was connected to the “We Build the
Wall” campaign by Trump advisor Steve Bannon, who owns a home in Tucson, and Tucson veteran Brian
Kolfage, which resulted in several criminal convictions.

Last week, Congress approved a massive influx of new spending, including nearly $46.5 billion for border wall projects. 

Su said the 32-mile valley corridor is “replete with oak woodlands, grassland savannah, and mountainous slopes, and the border largely contains only vehicle barriers and cattle-fencing that can generally be traversed by wildlife. However, the construction of new barriers would “essentially be the death knell for jaguars in the United States, eliminating over 53 years-worth of jaguar conservation efforts” from federal agencies, local organizations, and the Tohono O’odham Nation.

This would leave an “irreplaceable void in the landscape that would be continuously felt by the communities who have lived beside them.”

Su said the project would create Arizona’s “longest unbroken stretch of border wall amounting to 100 miles,” and the new wall would not only block migratory routes, it will “destroy habitats of 17 endangered and threatened species, disturb wildlife during construction due to associated noise and light pollution, divide genetic interchange, impact groundwater availability in local aquifers, and disrupt the cultural integrity of borderland communities.”

Along with the oft-celebrated northern jaguar, the border wall project would also harm the ocelot, Su said.

She also noted the border wall will cut across the Santa Cruz twice. The Santa Cruz river flows out of the San Rafael Valley and heads south before curving west and returning to Arizona in Nogales before running north past Tubac, Green Valley and Tucson.

The project will move forward even after apprehensions have collapsed across the U.S.-Mexico border, following a near year-long trend that began last June under the Biden administration.

Data from CBP shows Border Patrol agents took just 8,725 people into custody across the entire Southwest border over the last eight months, and overall apprehensions are down 83 percent from the same period a year ago.

In the Tucson Sector, which covers most of Arizona including the San Rafael Valley, apprehensions are down nearly 91 percent from the same period a year ago. In May, agents in the Tucson Sector took just 1,588 people into custody.

Noem ‘short-circuiting’ federal law 

It remains unclear whether the courts could block construction
because Noem’s ability to issue waivers and ignore nearly three dozen
federal laws is granted by the Clinton-era Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act and was reinforced by the 2005 REAL ID act.

This
includes the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Air Act, the Native
American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, and the Safe Drinking
Water Act.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael
Chertoff used the authority at least five times from 2005 to 2009 to
“waive in their entirety” more than 37 federal laws, including the
National Environmental Policy Act, to build more than 550 miles of
border wall and roads along the southern border.

Chertoff, and his
successor under the Obama administration, Jeh Johnson, waived the
environmental impacts of new construction and border enforcement
throughout the Southwest, including protected federal lands like Organ
Pipe Cactus National Monument and Big Bend National Park.

The
first Trump administration’s round-robin of Homeland Security
secretaries used waivers at least 29 times, and as late as April 2020,
DHS was issuing new waivers for construction for around 15 miles of
border wall in the Rio Grande Valley.

Noem has continued this
pattern, issuing waivers to clear construction projects near San Diego,
through the Tinajas Atlas mountains near Yuma, as well as project in New
Mexico and Texas.

Su argued that Noem’s decision to exempt the San Rafael project from federal law means DHS is “cutting the public out of this important decision-making process and short-circuiting well-established federal processes designed to safeguard our environment and its natural resources.”

Advocates ask Congress to intervene

Earlier this week, the center urged congressional action to stop the border wall project.

“The
San Rafael Valley is one of the last intact cross-border corridors for
endangered species in the Sky Islands region. If the Trump
administration succeeds in walling it off, migration routes for jaguars,
ocelots, black bears and a host of other species will be permanently
severed,” the group wrote. Congress must act now to stop this
irreversible destruction. Lawmakers should immediately rescind funding
for border wall construction and pass explicit legislative language
prohibiting the Department of Homeland Security from using federal
appropriations to build barriers in the San Rafael Valley or otherwise
requiring that border security measures provide for transboundary
wildlife permeability.” 

The group added that during a 2019 funding bill, Congress limited border wall construction in four “ecologically sensitive areas of South Texas, including the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge and Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park. 

“With
time running out, the same tool must be used to protect the San Rafael
Valley. Without swift and decisive congressional action, this
irreplaceable corridor — and the species that depend on it — may be lost
forever,” the group wrote on Monday. “With construction threats
looming, Congress needs to act now to stop further destruction and
permanently protect this last remaining artery before it is sealed shut
forever.”