Illegal Immigrant Environmentalism (Build a Wall and They Won't Come)

Substitute The Jack-Booted here.

Of all the "carefully crafted with insanely twisted logic" rationales for not controlling our nation's borders, none makes my blood boil over more than the claim that control of our borders means damage to the environment.

Here I am: A Democrat and very sympathetic to the cause of a healthy environment. Pass all the strong, broad and far-thinking environmental legislation possible, I say. Guilty of throwing a gum wrapper into the gutter? Get a rope.

So, yes, a wall along the border will cause some environmental damage resultant by both its construction and by its effect on migrating animals. But what does this mean in comparison to the damage to the environment that unchecked illegal immigration to America will, is currently, and has caused? Think in these terms: A weed standing next to a giant sequioa.

The presence of tens of millions of people who should not be here produces, or contributes greatly to, the following results: Litter; Increased rate of the filling of landfills; Increased traffic and smog; Urban sprawl; Dwindling water supply; and all-around environmental degradation. These are problems that range across America, from the border areas to Nebraska to New York and Georgia, Chicago, Los Angeles and Seattle as a direct result of unchecked illegal immigration. Some areas will be impacted year after year -- mainly the American west due to the lack of water even in the best of times.

But areas impacted are as far-ranging as the settlement pattern of illegal aliens themselves: Good citizens of Atlanta, how do you like sharing your drought-stricken water rations with people who aren't there legally? Los Angeles and San Diego, have you met your illegal neighbor in the next lane over as you sit in choked freeway lanes around 8 a.m. or 5 p.m.? People of Denver, you certainly are not immune to the concept of sprawl brought on in no small way by the housing demands of -- wait for it ? illegal aliens. What does that suburban and x-urban sprawl, that lack of water, that pollution, and overall environmental degradation mean to the banana slug, the spotted owl, the golden trout, the elk, the grizzly, the desert tortoise, the salmon run, the Sierra frog, the old growth forests, the already-on-the-ropes wetlands, and the American bald eagle? How about to your basic right to breathe clean air?

Well, it ain't good. That pack of bobcats that hop-scotches across the U.S.-Mexican border that pro-illegal activists suddenly have become so concerned about cease to become statistically relevant in comparison to all the environmental ills unchecked illegal immigration ultimately casts. 12 million illegal aliens as a city would be ranked just below Mumbai, India (Population: 13 million) and Karachi, Pakistan (Population 12.1 million) on the list of world's largest cities. It is 4 times the population of L.A. If you were to remove L.A. four times over -- though we must preserve Dodger Stadium for the author's personal amusement -- anybody who has spent a smoggy day in the City of Angels can get a sense of what that would do for the health of the environment, not to mention the lungs.

I sit here and boil over the fact that the leaders of my own party seem to lack either the conviction or the will to combat this obvious and very real problem, even though there are plenty of mainstream Democrats like myself who would insist upon it as a matter of the preservation of our country. My dismay at my own party is matched only by the fact that leaders of the GOP are very much influenced by the money that industry captains shove in their pockets to keep the supply of cheap labor flowing unobstructed instead of listening to their rank-and-file.

Now, are illegal aliens the root cause of all evil in the vast world of American environmental problems? No. Not by a long shot. But they certainly aren't helping, and most-assuredly are contributing to the problem. I'm just here to offer the plain truth to counter claims that stopping their crossing will hurt the environment. Indeed, whatever environmental problems a wall would create in the border lands alone would have to be negated by its positives. Anybody have any idea how much trash is left behind in the desert by illegals wandering through?

Beyond the obvious primary questions of fundamental fairness of those who would cut in line, security, and national autonomy there is to be no doubt that irreversible environmental degradation is the single-most tangible body-blow that illegal aliens land on the United States.