A Flash Point in the Biden-Harris Border Crisis
By: U.S. Rep. Juan Ciscomani (AZ-06)
America’s southern border is in crisis and our public lands are bearing the brunt. The policy failures of the Biden-Harris administration have made communities in my district less safe and harmed the environment along the southern border. In Arizona, more than 80 percent of public lands are managed by federal land agencies, like the National Park Service and the Bureau of Land Management. While our federal lands are critical, federal regulations can hinder the ability of law enforcement officers to carry out their mission - protecting our communities and residents.
When U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents and officers are pursuing cartel members, human smugglers, or other bad actors, their chase effectively ends when they reach federal lands. This is because regulations prohibit the use of motorized vehicles on federal lands, even by law enforcement. As a result, an agent must halt their pursuit and call for a horse, allowing bad actors time to escape.
Unnecessary regulations like these have been compounded by the sheer scale of the immigration crisis enabled by the Biden-Harris administration. Every single month this Fiscal Year, there have been more than 100,000 illegal crossings at our southern border, with some months reaching upwards of 300,000 crossings. And that is not even counting the number of ‘gotaways’ who escaped detection and entered the United States, a common occurrence in the Tucson Sector. Worse still,169 individuals whose names appear on the Terrorist Watch List attempted to cross the southern border between ports of entry last year, setting yet another annual record.
Moreover, as they attempt to enter the United States, illegal immigrants leave behind trash, such as plastics, human waste, discarded products, clothes, abandoned vehicles and more, which are strewn across our federal border lands in growing piles that harm our environment. These trash piles limit visibility, hinder movement, and can cause wildfires.
As a representative to a border-district, I invited my colleagues from the House Committee on Natural Resources and the Congressional Western Caucus to come to Cochise County to see firsthand the damage the border crisis does to my communities and our environment. It was during that hearing that Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels correctly said that we don’t just have an illegal immigration problem, we have an organized crime problem. After this visit, I worked with Natural Resource Committee Chairman Bruce Westerman (AR-04) to introduce the Federal Lands Amplified Security for the Homeland (FLASH) Act (H.R. 9678) in Congress. The FLASH Act presents comprehensive solutions to tackle public safety issues and environmental destruction currently decimating federal lands all along the southern border.
This bill provides for the construction of navigable roads along federal border lands to improve law enforcement ability to do their job. The Border Patrol has long called for this measure, including agents working in the Coronado National Forest near Tucson, as it will help agents travel safely through rugged terrain and improve their response times to illegal crossings. This legislation also requires federal land managers to create a plan to address and reduce growing trash piles along our border, protecting our environment and safeguarding the health of my communities.
Our CBP agents and officers deserve the access and resources they need to perform their job well and safely. Our community members deserve to feel safe in their neighborhoods and while enjoying our beautiful public lands. If the Biden-Harris administration won’t do its job, we in Congress must do it for them. Our border crisis is at a flash point, and we won’t stand for it any longer.