Migrants leaving ugly mark on land
Andrew Becker
KRT Campus
Issue date: 10/20/05 Section: The Mix
ARIVACA, Ariz. - Empty water jugs and scraps of clothing are as common as saguaro and mesquite in this part of the Sonoran Desert, 12 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border.
There are places along the Mexico border in Arizona where the desert floor is hidden by discarded backpacks, shoes and other refuse left behind by people crossing the border.
These are the signs of illegal immigration, found in heaps at camps, along well-worn paths that run through the dry desert creek beds and ever closer to Tucson, 50 miles northeast.
"It would be an understatement to say parts of the desert have been trashed," said Gail Aschenbrenner, spokeswoman for the 1.7 million-acre Coronado National Forest, which shares 60 miles of border with Sonora, Mexico.
"It's like collateral damage," said Gary Nabhan, director of the Center for Sustainable Environments at Northern Arizona University, who has studied southern Arizona desert ecology.
Illegal immigrants drop an average of 6 to 8 pounds of waste during their journey, according to government estimates. With an estimated 1 million people crossing into Arizona each year, that amounts to 4,000 tons of garbage.
The worst areas are at smugglers' "lay-up" sites, where travelers wait to be transported to areas such as Tucson and Phoenix. Backpacks and clothes practically pave the ground, left behind so that more people can be packed into vehicles, or when the immigrants try to change their appearance from dusty hikers to indistinguishable citizens.
Federal and state money to address the problem has trickled down, but it's not enough, resource managers say. Citizen cleanup efforts exist, but volunteers can't keep up.
Neither can landowners. Ranchers Tom and Dena Kay, whose property touches five miles of border, said they haul out a pickup load of garbage a week.
"It makes you very, very angry because there's such lack of respect of the land and the people living here," said Dena Kay, 62.
There are places along the Mexico border in Arizona where the desert floor is hidden by discarded backpacks, shoes and other refuse left behind by people crossing the border.
These are the signs of illegal immigration, found in heaps at camps, along well-worn paths that run through the dry desert creek beds and ever closer to Tucson, 50 miles northeast.
"It would be an understatement to say parts of the desert have been trashed," said Gail Aschenbrenner, spokeswoman for the 1.7 million-acre Coronado National Forest, which shares 60 miles of border with Sonora, Mexico.
"It's like collateral damage," said Gary Nabhan, director of the Center for Sustainable Environments at Northern Arizona University, who has studied southern Arizona desert ecology.
Illegal immigrants drop an average of 6 to 8 pounds of waste during their journey, according to government estimates. With an estimated 1 million people crossing into Arizona each year, that amounts to 4,000 tons of garbage.
The worst areas are at smugglers' "lay-up" sites, where travelers wait to be transported to areas such as Tucson and Phoenix. Backpacks and clothes practically pave the ground, left behind so that more people can be packed into vehicles, or when the immigrants try to change their appearance from dusty hikers to indistinguishable citizens.
Federal and state money to address the problem has trickled down, but it's not enough, resource managers say. Citizen cleanup efforts exist, but volunteers can't keep up.
Neither can landowners. Ranchers Tom and Dena Kay, whose property touches five miles of border, said they haul out a pickup load of garbage a week.
"It makes you very, very angry because there's such lack of respect of the land and the people living here," said Dena Kay, 62.