Illegal immigration and public lands

Utah Rep. Rob Bishop has taken some heat for suggesting that environmental laws are hindering efforts to secure the border with Mexico. But Friday morning he visited the Deseret News and KSL editorial boards with some interesting facts and graphics.

The first was a map of border patrol sectors, showing how many illegal aliens were detained in each during the past two fiscal years. The Tucson sector, which encompasses much of Arizona, accounted for far-and-away the largest amount — 212,202 in 2010, down slightly from the year before.
The interesting thing is that Texas sectors intercepted far fewer illegals, from 12,251 in El Paso (which also includes New Mexico) to 59,766 in the Rio Grande Valley.
Why the difference? Bishop says it has to do with public lands. Most of the border lands in Texas are privately owned. Border Patrol agents, surprisingly, have free rein to do what’s necessary to secure private land on the border. Public land, however, is another matter.
Much of Arizona’s border is public land and includes places like Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. Here, border agents are severely restricted by environmental laws. The border fence has to stop for areas where certain animals naturally migrate.
Drug runners and the coyotes who smuggle people across the border don’t care about those laws. Bishop concludes that this weakness is what funnels illegal immigration primarily through Arizona, which is why that state seems to react so strongly with tough laws.
He is co-sponsoring a bill that would waive environmental laws along the border.
As much as I believe in finding solutions allowing guest workers to enter this country and contribute, I also believe it’s clear that securing the border is in the nation’s best interest.
Environmentalists oppose this, mainly because they see it as a slippery slope toward weakening important laws that protect sensitive lands. Much of that land, however, already is being degraded by people who use it as an entry point.
Others say current border patrol agents disagree with Bishop’s assessment. How, then, do they explain why Arizona is such a popular entry point?