April 25 "Fences and Floods: New Border Walls in the Rio Grande" at the University of Texas Pan American

Scott Nicol, Sierra Club Borderlands Team chair and LRGV Sierra Club Conservation co-chair, will be speaking at the University of Texas Pan American on April 25 about the flood risks and environmental damage that will come with new border walls slated for the Rio Grande floodplain. Through Freedom of Infomation Act requests Scott has uncovered documents showing that Customs and Border Protection plans to condemn private lands and take parts of the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge to build these walls. For years the US section of the International Boundary and Water Commission rejected these walls as posing too great a flood hazard to communities on both sides of the river, but a year ago they caved in to pressure from CBP and approved walls in the floodplain.

At 6pm on April 25 the Sierra Club will screen the 20 minute film Wild vs. Wall, followed by a discussion of the hazards posed by these new walls. The event will occur at the UT Pan American Health Auditorium (HSHW 1.404), and is free and open to the public. You can see a campus map here.

Presentations on the border wall's impacts in South Texas August 22 & 23

The rugged deserts and mountains of Arizona’s southern border can be a treacherous place. Josseline was fourteen years old when she and her little brother crossed the U.S.-Mexico border, hoping to reunite with their mother in California. Walking for days, Josseline got sick and fell behind her group and the coyote that led them.

Three weeks later, Dan Millis was among the humanitarian aid volunteers that stumbled across Josseline's lifeless body in a remote canyon along the border. Since then, Millis has come to know that the costs of fatally flawed U.S. border policies extend beyond the tragic deaths of border crossers like Josseline. Walls push crossers into more remote desert terrain. Border ecosystems and the federal laws that protect them have also been cast aside by costly, ineffective, environmentally destructive, and inhumane attempts to "secure the border."

The Lower Rio Grande Valley Sierra Club is proud to co-sponsor presentations by Dan Millis in Brownsville on Monday, August 22, and in San Juan on Tuesday, August 23 respectively. Millis will tell how he was ticketed, dragged to court, and convicted of "littering" after leaving drinking water for migrants along border desert trails shortly after he found Josseline. Now working for the Sierra Club in Tucson, Dan will also discuss the environmental impacts of border walls and other enforcement measures. He will share stories of trans-national friendship and offer tips on which border walls are easiest to climb. Most importantly, Millis will speak up for the people and places victimized by border walls and enforcement-only politics and invite you to join in the fight.

Please join us Monday, August 22 at Galeria 409 in Brownsville, TX and Tuesday, August 23 at St. John the Baptist Parish Hall in San Juan, TX. Both presentations begin at 7:00pm. Refreshments will be served.

Monday, August 22 at 7:00pm Galeria 409 in Brownsville, Texas
Directions to Galeria 409, 409 E. 13th St.: From Expressway 77/83 in Brownsville, exit International and go south. Turn right onto Washington. Turn left on E 12th. Turn left on Levee St. Turn left onto E 13th. Galeria 409 is on the left in the middle of the block between Levee and Elizabeth streets. Parking is available at meters on Levee and Elizabeth, and there's a big parking lot on Levee and E 12th.

Tuesday, August 23 at 7:00pm St John the Baptist Parish Hall in San Juan, Texas
Directions to St John the Baptist, 216 W. 1st St.: From Expressway 83, exit Raul Longoria/Nebraska exit in San Juan and turn south on Nebraska. Turn right on 1st St. You will see the tower on the right. The Parish Hall is just past the tower. Parking is on the west and north side of the church complex.

Tell Senator Schumer that Border Walls are NOT Immigration Reform!

Senator Charles Schumer will be crafting Comprehensive Immigration Reform legislation over the August recess, and has announced that he will introduce it around Labor Day. While it should be good news that immigration reform may finally be addressed, it looks like Schumer plans to include more border walls in the bill. If walls are part of the bill that he introduces it will be extremely difficult to strip them out. We may even see a repeat of 2006, in which border walls were part of competing immigration reform bills in the House and Senate. Those reform efforts died, and their border wall provisions were turned into the Secure Fence Act.

In a June press release, Schumer listed 7 principles that will form the basis of Comprehensive Immigration Reform. Principles 1 & 2 are:

1. Illegal immigration is wrong, and a primary goal of comprehensive immigration reform must be to dramatically curtail future illegal immigration.

2. Operational control of our borders--through significant additional increases in infrastructure, technology, and border personnel--must be achieved within a year of enactment of legislation.

http://schumer.senate.gov/new_website/record.cfm?id=314990

Senator Schumer recently voted for Senator DeMint's amendment, which calls for hundreds of miles of border wall.

It is critical that we pressure Senator Schumer to keep border walls out of his immigration reform bill. A good start would be to flood his office with phone calls, faxes, and emails. Below is a sample letter that anyone can copy and send along, but it is important to remember that phone calls and personal letters will have more impact. The important thing is to stress that border walls must NOT be part of immigration reform.

There is a form on Schumer's website that you can use to write to him here:
http://schumer.senate.gov/new_website/contact.cfm
But again, phone calls and personalized letters will be the most effective.

Senator Charles Schumer

313 Hart Senate Building

Washington , DC 20510

202-224-6542

Dear Senator Schumer,

I was extremely disappointed by your vote for Senator DeMint’s amendment calling for more border walls, and I am worried that you plan to include border walls in Comprehensive Immigration Reform. While immigration reform is needed, border walls should not be part of it.

The walls that already scar the borderlands have not stopped desperate immigrants from entering the United States . Border Patrol spokespersons refer to them as “speed bumps,” and say that they only slow crossers by 5 minutes. The Congressional Research Service determined that border walls have “no discernible impact” on the number of undocumented immigrants who successfully cross our borders.

While they fail at their intended purpose, border walls have serious negative impacts, including:

· Pushing thousands of border crossers into the desert, where hundreds die each year. The GAO found that after walls were built near San Diego the number of annual deaths in the desert doubled, and in the past decade over 5,000 bodies have been recovered.

· Inflicting tremendous environmental damage, including the severing of wildlife migration corridors, the destruction of endangered species habitat, the sedimentation of rivers, and unprecedented harm to designated Wilderness Areas, National Monuments, Wildlife Refuges, and preserves owned by Audubon and the Nature Conservancy.

· Condemning the property of hundreds of landowners who live along the border. Farmers, ranchers, and homeowners, some of whose property has been passed down for generations, have been hauled into court and had their lands taken to make way for border walls.

· $3.1 billion has already been spent on border walls, and the DeMint amendment will cost another $2.7 billion. Our nation cannot afford to waste billions more on “speed bumps.”

Including more border walls in Comprehensive Immigration Reform would sacrifice more landowners, ecosystems, and the lives of hundreds of immigrants just to attract a few votes.

As Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said this past February, “you cannot build a fence from San Diego to Brownsville, Texas, and call that an immigration policy.”

Border walls have no place in immigration reform. Don’t sacrifice the border to pass the bill.