Some argue we’ll never be able
to seal our borders, so we should overturn current drug and immigration
policies to neutralize the illegal traffic. We should legalize
marijuana, create a guest worker program and dissolve an artificial
border that has always been porous, they say. Do that and we’ll
stop the violence while also preventing scores of migrants from
dropping dead in the summer heat.
As a newspaper reporter, I’ve learned to keep my opinions
to myself. But I do know this is a debate the country needs to
be having, and it’s a dilemma that won’t go away. In
the meantime, there’s a decent chance another ranger, or
a backpacker, biologist or bird watcher will be injured in the
crossfire along the border as endangered species like the Sonoran
pronghorn and pygmy owl are pushed closer to the brink.
Warnings ignored
Ranger Eggle, 28, died at the hands of a Mexican hit man who authorities
said had just taken part in a quadruple homicide south of the
border, possibly related to a marijuana debt. The assassin drove
straight into Organ Pipe through a flimsy barbed wire fence –
all that separates the First and Third Worlds for most of the
U.S.-Mexico border.
Eggle went looking for the hit man, accompanied by a Border Patrol
agent, supported by a helicopter above, and carrying his sidearm
and shotgun.
But the Mexican assassin popped out of the brush and shot Eggle
with an AK-47, the bullet passing beneath the ranger’s bulletproof
vest. Moments later, the assassin was killed in a hail of bullets
fired by Mexican officers standing on their side of the border.
The shootings were like something from a Wild West movie and were
a shock to southern Arizona. But the tragedy wasn’t all that
surprising to people who work in a region that has become a hotbed
for illegal trafficking of people and narcotics.
Law enforcement officers at Organ Pipe -- named "most dangerous
national park" two years running by a rangers’ advocacy
group -- regularly stalk, chase, confront, arrest and dodge the
speeding cars of smugglers.
Senior federal officials knew rangers at Organ Pipe faced an "alarming
possibility" of being killed or maimed. A 1999 Park Service
report to Congress told them "armed confrontations, brandishing
weapons and shoot-outs" were occurring "with significant
frequency" around four parks on the U.S.-Mexican border.
But for years the Park Service and Congress basically turned a
deaf ear to Organ Pipe's pleas for help with understaffing, and
it wasn’t until Eggle’s death that the park saw its
law enforcement resources double.
Eggle's father told me his son was nearly run over twice and should
have been backed up by the military or trained in SWAT tactics,
given the warlike conditions he faced every day.
"I fought in Vietnam and faced political constraints that
cost me a lot of young guys," Bob Eggle said. "My son
was in combat, and because of some politics he lost his life."
Clash of cultures
Aside from inadequate funding from Congress, many inside the Park
Service cite a clash of cultures: Law enforcement gets shortchanged
as top officials focus instead on managing wilderness and preserving
historical icons.
Dan Wirth, a leader of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association,
said many top Park Service officials "physically recoil at
the sight of a gun" and have no experience with law enforcement.
Even rangers far from Mexico regularly confront danger. Urban
areas are encroaching on once-isolated parks, while the Grand
Canyon's South Rim and Yosemite Valley look like cities in summer.
As a result, many rangers wear bulletproof vests and are armed
with pistols, shotguns and military-style AR-15 assault rifles.
Nationally, Park Service law enforcement rangers had the highest
rate of assaults per 1,000 officers of any federal agency, according
to a 2001 Justice Department study.
Law enforcement has become a priority for Interior Secretary Gale
Norton after numerous internal and external reviews of her agency
in recent years have slammed its policing program.
Don Murphy, the Park Service's new deputy director, said policy-makers
in and outside the Park Service need to lose their "very
traditional views of the National Park Service ranger as the good
guy in the Smokey Bear hat who just does campfire programs."
"Yes, they lead hikes and tours and do all those wonderful
things, but they also risk their lives on a daily basis,"
he said.
Perhaps nowhere else is the risk as great as southern Arizona.
Earlier this year, the House Appropriations Committee concluded
that some federal lands there "can no longer be used safely
by the public or federal employees due to the significance of
smuggling undocumented aliens and controlled substances into the
United States."
The report reveals chilling episodes that would give pause to
anyone who recreates or works on the region's public lands:
-
Smugglers are "using
hunting season as a cover to try to get drugs across the border,"
also disguising themselves as backpackers to blend in.
-
At San Bernardino National
Wildlife Refuge, smugglers went to an officer's home in the
dead of night and threatened to harm the officer and his family
if he didn't return a load of marijuana seized earlier in
the day.
-
At Coronado National Memorial,
smugglers use a steep ridge overlooking the headquarters to
spy on rangers. Among them are "heavily armed scouts
who are equipped with automatic assault weapons, encrypted
radios, night vision optics and possibly thermal imaging devices."
"It's a bad thought, but one
of these days one of our employees or visitors will come upon
a trigger-happy 16-year-old sitting on a drug load, and things
will not go well," said Keith Graves of the Coronado National
Forest's Nogales district, which has only one law enforcement
officer to patrol 350,000 acres.
The Coronado has seen an exponential increase in marijuana trafficking,
with seizures soaring from 607 pounds in 1996 to 8,388 pounds
in 2001.
"Marijuana is the drug of choice to come across public lands
because it's big, bulky, stinky and it doesn't go through the
ports well," said Greg Lelo, the forest's patrol captain.
Biologists fear traffic’s impact
Scientists have yet to do a systematic study of the biological
impact of border crossers. But many suspect the soaring number
of humans and vehicles in previously quiet backcountry areas is
doing harm, especially to creatures already stressed by the drought
or habitat loss.
Based on 2001 figures, Organ Pipe estimated the number of illegal
visitors passing through its wilderness was 100 times the number
of people who legally obtained back-country permits - fewer than
3,000 in recent years.
To gauge the effects of cross-border traffic, scientists surveyed
the 516-square-mile monument and noted all signs of illegal use.
They concluded if a visitor were to pick a point at random in
the wilderness, then walk three miles in any direction, he would
likely see four vehicle tracks, seven pieces of trash, nine water
bottles and four incidents of "major damage," such as
saguaro cacti carved with names or rocks tagged with graffiti.
Critics complain the Border Patrol does its fair share of damage
while chasing people. But nearly all public-land managers say
the problem would be far greater without the Border Patrol guarding
their property.
This fall, as I drove on bone-jarring dirt roads with Border Patrol
agents, park rangers and wildlife managers, the inescapable conclusion
I came to was that the world’s most powerful nation is outmatched
at its own doorstep.
Drug smugglers, with a nearly unlimited budget and a huge profit
motive, are far better equipped than our guys. And Latin America’s
impoverished, with little to lose, are willing to risk everything
for jobs most Americans would never take.
And so the cat-and-mouse game continues, day after day, with America’s
natural jewels caught in the middle.
Mitch Tobin is the environment
writer at the Arizona Daily Star, Tucson’s morning newspaper.Contact
him at mtobin@azstarnet.com
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