Potential Effects of United States‐Mexico Border Hardening on Ecological and Human Communities in the Malpai Borderlands

Between 17 October and 29 December 2008, contractors working for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) constructed approximately 19 km of contiguous barrier along the United States-Mexico border in the Malpai Borderlands region of southeastern Arizona. The construction was part of the U.S. Secure Fence Act of 2006, which mandated installation of fences, barriers, roads, and surveillance technology on five segments of the United States-Mexican border, totaling approximately 1120 km (or 35% of the entire border) by December 2008. To expedite implementation of the act, Congress authorized the secretary of Homeland Security to waive all or parts of 37 federal statutes pertaining to the conservation of cultural and environmental resources, including the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act (ESA), the Clean Air and Clean Water acts, and the Antiquities Act. Secretary Michael Chertoff exercised this authority on 1 April 2008. According to the Associated Press (28 January 2009), 962 km of barriers had been completed as of January 2009; DHS maps indicate that nearly all of the new construction is located between San Diego, California, and El Paso, Texas. The Malpai Borderlands region harbors significant cultural and ecological resources and has been the site of extraordinary conservation efforts in recent decades (Curtin 2002; Sayre 2006). Cultural sites and artifacts are ubiquitous, reflecting aboriginal human use from the Clovis period to the last days of the Apaches as well as historical Euro-American settlement. Judging from natural heritage data, there are more species of plants and animals in the borderlands than in any other place of comparable size