Illegal Immigration: One Conservationist’s View From the Frontline

Spring Migration in Southeastern Arizona

April in the mountains of southeastern Arizona brings a tide of migrant neo-tropical birds. With it comes a feeling of joy as winter yields to a new season of life.

In our spring, native deciduous trees germinate fresh leaves in conventional fashion, as evergreen oaks shed and instantly sprout new. As winter ends we experience an eerie combination of spring and fall, as our house becomes covered in a blanket of brown oak leaves. We are part of a small area of the Lower Forty-Eight included in the sierra madrean occidental, a term used to describe a large geographic area spanning the U.S.-Mexican border.

Around the ides of March, the painted redstart, a small warbler, invariably appears, ushering forth his Jurassic kin in their annual crossing to the north. Overnight, the trees become filled with yellow and black orioles and other migrating songbirds of a prolific variety. Songs as melodious as music itself emanate from all directions in the surrounding woods. Pairs and trios of male Scott’s orioles engage in a lithe frolic through the boughs in what seems like a competition for best song improvisation. Although trying to gently intimidate their compadres, they seem concerned with little more than merrymaking and song. Soon the females arrive, ending the male orioles’ spring break, as responsibility for nest building and parenting take precedence.

Thirteen species of hummingbirds also arrive, descending voraciously on our flowers and feeders in a fanatical clash for territory and sustenance. Pairs square off in vicious dogfights, sometimes falling to the ground in a ball of writhing feathers and crackling beaks, as gravity prevails over skilled natural aviators. They are an endless source of fascination and free entertainment.

Nightfall brings the secret movement of owls scraping the land for small rodents and unlucky insects, keeping an eye out for a private enough tree cavity in which to raise some young. Spring is a busy cacophony of bird life—perfect and unthreatening—proof that we still have a wonderful world to hallow and protect.

A Completely Different Species

As inevitable as the northbound birds, the warm southwestern days also bring a river of humanity swelling its banks north through woodlands made more hospitable by turning seasons. Unlike any bird or animal in the forest, this migrant can be dangerous and quite capable of upsetting the gentle harmony of life in our borderlands.

An army of federal law enforcement agents spread out with little distinction through private and public lands, in a Keystone Comic treadmill-quest for the intruders. The human migrants are in pursuit of the U.S. money god, sneaking or being guided through our lands like ghosts in the night—”mohados” marching north, anywhere but home.

The quiet borderlands capitulate to the sound of predator drones. “Mosquito planes” buzz our campfires in search of infrared. Noisy rotor blades chop, and the smell of diesel wafts down over ancient grasslands. Species flee. Doors are locked at night, lights off to dissuade uninvited guests. The rattlesnakes are our sentries. Still, the river keeps moving north, leaving not fertile silt, but plastic bottles and pill containers, abandoned backpacks, old shoes, discarded brassieres, and other unmentionable byproducts of human life. We, the keepers of the forest, are left to pick up after the trespassers—those we are told our economy depends on. We call them illegals, yet we don’t hold them accountable for the damage they do, nor do we hold anybody accountable for tempting them into making the potentially lethal crossing of the desert.

Better Days

When we moved here in 1997, the land was still untainted by illegal immigration. There was not a print, a trail, a runaway campfire or unwanted track shoe on our land or in our fragile vanishing riparian canyons. Encouraged by modern commerce and an overstuffed, overstimulated culture that considers some employment unworthy of success, the mohados flow north in greater numbers than ever.

When I left the city I wanted to spend what I had worked hard to earn in southeastern Arizona, making a small difference, protecting the land from the wreckers of views—the builders and architects and other perpetrators of the slow destruction of my natural history, those that without thinking would sell my land down the river for a quick profit, land that first and foremost belongs to my furred and feathered companions in liberty. Land developers and a growing list of business interests of course welcome the migrating interlopers as fuel for their profit machines.

So they come, encouraged, but still consciously breaking laws we strictly follow. They cross the border dividing our countries, steal through remote areas impossible to police and occasionally even fearlessly approach the house. They waltz into our yard and with disconcerting confidence test us for food and water, as if nothing was out of the ordinary about it. At first we gave them food, then we were told to give them nothing, because word would spread back to Mexico and our nature preserve would become a rest stop on the human freeway. So then we gave them nothing but water. Finally, they entered the house uninvited, helped themselves to our food, cooked themselves a meal and slept in our bed. Later, they stole everything of value they could carry, including my wife’s engagement ring, an irreplaceable saxophone mouthpiece and an antique Navajo bolo with my favorite bird crafted in red stone.

How these migrant burglars made it through harsh country to Tucson or Phoenix, carrying sacks of wool blankets, winter coats, kitchen knives, chargers, flashlights, radios, Budweiser cans and all manner of food stuffs, without law enforcement detecting a thing, suggests either their cunning ingenuity or the ineptitude of law enforcement. Needless to say, not an item was ever recovered.

Since that day our alarm has been tripped and our doors broken in. White SUVs come and go and people in green sneak around armed to the teeth. They are always nice polite young men and women, but with little comprehension of life here or its meaning to us. Having little choice, we accommodate them and they are our last line of defense after the expensive alarm and our handguns and pump-shotgun, and strictly agreed-upon courses of action should an undocumented criminal decide to prey on us with law enforcement out of reach. As a former New Yorker, I had been burglarized and nearly mugged, but surely life on this border would not get that bad? Ironically, while the government attempts to enforce our immigration policies, we suffer indignities and inconveniences in the wake of their failure, while others profit illegally with impunity. Something is very wrong.

Rule of Law

I am sympathetic to the people of Mexico who suffer because of a system that will not put its people to work. Ironically, theirs is a land flush with its own natural resources. The reasons are multifaceted, but the remedy is not our responsibility to burden. Built on the rule of law, our country cannot make exceptions for special interests that cannibalize cheap labor for bigger and bigger profits. Illegal immigration also cannibalizes American workers and the benefits naturalized Americans rely on to help makes ends meet in difficult times. In the path of this unregulated human highway, individual citizens in border states suffer with little attention paid by the rest of society. In our case, this means we are unable to enjoy the right to the quiet enjoyment of our home and the sanctity of the surrounding national forest. We are being forced to bear, with no compensation or relief of any kind, the burden of illegal migrations the society supposedly benefits from. We are burglarized. Without our permission, our property is used as a zone for enforcement and apprehension. Agents chasing undocumented individuals interfere with our lives. Drones upset the quiet balance of life in a previously peaceful part of America. Trash clogs our canyons. We are forced to constantly look over our shoulder and sleep with a loaded gun next to our pillow.

Pressing Issues at Home Already

We tolerate people living on our streets, millions without affordable health care or insurance, older Americans destitute without pensions, large segments of the population underemployed, yet in denial, we stealthily usher in an even lower economic class, which, as their first act, consciously breaks the law by sneaking across the border.

It is a well-known fact that the current housing crisis is taking a larger toll on illegal workers. They simply don’t make enough or have the benefits to weather an economic slowdown. By forcing workers to accept slave wages to do our dirty work, we are creating a class of people who will become an even greater liability to us as time passes. The wealth created at the expense of these workers does not trickle down, as evidenced by the last six years and the growing gap between the rich and poor. It is especially unfair to middle-class working Americans. They would do most of the jobs we are told only Latinos will do if only a living wage existed for the work.

Our current economic model suggests a pyramid, enriching people at the top at the expense of those at the bottom, which many of our 12 million unregistered immigrants are now a part. Our illegal population, our shrinking middle class, people like me who are concerned with conservation and sustainability and see resources not being adequately utilized, represent the bottom of a great commercial pyramid in which a relatively few at the top benefit at great expense to society at large.

‘Nation of Immigrants’ a Myth

There is a myth floating around that if we are kind and open to poor illegal immigrants, we are stronger for it and can somehow afford it. I don’t think the average American realizes the tax that especially poorer Americans pay indirectly as a result of illegal workers taking jobs and benefits. This is a departure from yesteryear when large numbers of immigrants were fleeing religious and political persecution and founding a new country.

The argument that the United States of America is a nation of immigrants, or that because we have

traditionally taken in the poor and disenfranchised our future depends on it, or that we are morally obliged to keep our current policy, are outdated, unrealistic, simplistic views of life in the twenty-first century. It is absurd to conclude that illegal immigration is not wrong because we need cheap labor or that we must hurt ourselves in order to be sympathetic to our poorer neighbors to the south. Don’t let the powers that be fool you—it has nothing to do with humanitarian justice—only money and profit, as evidenced by the U.S. Senate’s attempt to put job skills over the sanctity of families divided by borders. If the former were true, we would airlift all the refugees in Darfur or other destitute locations on earth into the United States. We cannot take in all people in the world whose lives are challenged by demands placed on them at birth in foreign countries. Certainly not in a world with 6.5 billion people, exponentially increasing with every passing year. How do we decide who comes in America and who does not? Immigration must be a slow, thoughtful government-controlled process, based on reasoned considerations and the will of the people as reflected by their elected officials.

Illegal penetration of our international border cannot be a permissible prerequisite for becoming an American citizen or working inside the United States.

A Conservation Angle

As a person whose special priority is conservation, I do not undervalue human life, nor do I dismiss the needs of the poor, the suffering or the disenfranchised. I value human civilization as a great force capable of protecting, preserving and improving the world. I see a light in every child’s face, full of hope and potential, but it is of critical importance that we carefully steward our land and guide our culture to guarantee those children's right to grow up into a world of balance and integrity.

As a conservationist, I believe that wildlife and wildlife habitat is just as important a priority in keeping America whole as a fast-growing economy fueled by cheap labor supplied by Mexico. It is absurd to fantasize that we can go on looking the other way while an endless column of human souls presses north. We must be as selfish about our lands as will be necessary to maintain a stable, uncluttered, sustainable ecology for future generations. At the rate we are going, there will be no more habitat for wildlife. Mass extinctions will take place. Although ending illegal immigration from Mexico is hardly the only answer to loss of habitat for animals, immigration policy as a whole must be studied for its link to unsustainable population growth. There are consequences to the endless cycles of economic expansion that accompany large demographic changes.

Conclusion

I do not have the solution to the immigration crisis, but firmly believe a protracted discussion and debate should take place, and hardly can be avoided, as the president and some members of the United States Congress attempted recently, hoping for a quick fix similar to those that failed in the past. There is evidence that American workers rights and benefits may be threatened by the addition of 12 million soon-to-be-naturalized citizens who thought nothing of breaking the law to come here. There is evidence that a guest worker program would create an underclass of exploited human beings. Lawbreakers who, by virtue of the fact that they walked into the country, can now pay $8,000 to purchase their citizenship, while others offshore are invariably discriminated against. Shouldn’t employers who feasted off cheap labor all these years pick up part of the tab for deportation, law enforcement and other costs to society to compensate for their law breaking? Why is Mexico not being pressured to take action along its border to prevent its people from crossing it? Has anybody considered sanctions against Mexico as a way to encourage them, or will a wall costing billions of dollars simply do? A wall will only wreak havoc on nature, create an eyesore of epic proportions and cost the taxpayers a bundle with no promise that it would make much difference. Eliminating the incentive to cross once and for all through sanctions against Mexico and U.S. employers seems like a logical first step. As for filling unwanted jobs, let’s start by raising the minimum wage, creating incentives to employers to pay more and combing the entire world for a diverse cross-section of skilled and non-skilled workers to fill the needed jobs.

America cannot be all things to all people. As a nation, we have a lot to think about without being forced to accept, by default, the burden of millions of new uninvited immigrants. There are more productive ways to assist hungry people in other countries. It depends on how generous we are with our wealth and how willing we are to pay taxes. It will not just be in the form of so-called free trade, but will be measured in direct foreign aid and assistance, independent of McDonald’s, Nike, Coca-Cola, Walt Disney, Citigroup and others. It will not be rooted in a feeling we are doing the right thing by looking the other way as opportunists breach our borders in violation of our laws and dignity. Our generosity as a people will not be reflected in the hollow prosperity we derive at home at the hands of illegal workers, but by the sacrifices we make exporting food, clothing and medicine to those who need it at home in their own countries. For all people, home is where the heart is.

Editorial and research assistance by Louise Gordon