Save Sky Island Wildlife – Stop border wall construction now

The border wall at Coronado National Memorial runs west up the slopes of the Huachuca Mountains. Photo credit: Sky Island Alliance. / El muro fronterizo en el Monumento Nacional Coronado corre hacia el oeste por las laderas de la Sierra Huachuca. Crédito de la foto: Sky Island Alliance

More than 100 miles of border wall are under construction now in Arizona. Despite calls to halt border wall construction to ensure community safety during the coronavirus pandemic, the Trump Administration continues full steam ahead building a destructive wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. They’ve waived three dozen laws – from the National Environmental Protection Act to the Endangered Species Act – to fast-track wall construction along nearly the entire Arizona border — putting the wildlife of the Sky Islands at great peril.

This wall – which is already wreaking havoc on beloved wild places like Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument and San Bernardino National Wildlife Refuge – would bulldoze over a hundred miles of sensitive wildlife habitat, block the last remaining cross-border pathways for iconic species like jaguar and ocelots – and cut the Sky Islands into two.

Act now to tell federal officials that you oppose further construction of border wall through the heart of the Sky Islands and our public lands. Insist they stop all plans for construction.

Stop border wall construction in the Sky Islands

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Comment Letter
Please personalize your letter to Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Wolf
U.S. Department of Homeland Security Attn: Cochise, Pima, and Santa Cruz Counties Border Barrier Projects March 2020 Dear U.S. Border Patrol Officials and Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Wolf, I'm writing to urge you to immediately halt all planning and preparation for the construction of border walls in Arizona in Pima, Cochise and Santa Cruz counties. Adding 74 miles of border walls would significantly damage the environment, including habitat for endangered species like jaguars, ocelots and Mexican spotted owls. It would also harm the culture, commerce and quality of life for people in the area. The project would cut through or destroy a wildlife refuge, a designated wilderness area, national forest lands and a national memorial. It would sever vital pathways for wildlife to move around to reach food, water and mates. And would end jaguar recovery in the United States. Further construction of border barriers puts these fragile ecosystems at extreme unjustifiable risk. The project would also be a waste of taxpayer dollars. As the nation grapples with the COVID-19 pandemic, federal resources should be spent saving lives and protecting communities, not on costly and ineffective border barriers through rugged wildlands. Government reports show that border walls are expensive, ineffective and unproven at deterring crossers, especially in remote regions like the Sky Island mountains in Arizona. Finally I'm aware that the Department of Homeland Security has already waived 41 laws to build these border walls in Arizona, including the Endangered Species Act, National Environmental Policy Act, and Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. By waiving these laws, your department has ensured that the consequences and potential harms of this project will go unanalyzed. We would not build a major interstate highway without looking first at what lives in the path of a new road, so how can we build a 2,000-mile long wall without documenting and striving to protect impacted species? The irreversible damage caused by the proposed project to wildlife, border communities and human rights is unjustifiable, especially when Congress has explicitly rejected funding for such a costly, ineffective and unnecessary project. For all these reasons, I urge you to immediately halt plans for border walls in Arizona's Pima, Cochise and Santa Cruz counties.
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