Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument/NPS file

An Arizona Republican wants to give the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (USBP) unfettered access across official wilderness, and potential wilderness, in Big Bend National Park and Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in an effort to reduce illegal immigration.

Legislation (attached below) proposed by U.S. Rep. Juan Ciscomani calls for nearly 600 of miles of "navigable" roads to be available within 10 miles of the US-Mexico border for the Border Patrol, local law enforcement, and Defense Department usage. It also would allow authorities to construct roads, install structures, and land aircraft in official wilderness.

Bob Krumenaker, who closed his four-decade career with the National Park Service as superintendent of Big Bend, during a hearing Tuesday morning told the House Natural Resources Committee Subcommittee on Federal Land that parts of the proposed legislation were not only unnecessary but would be damaging to potential wilderness in the park.

"It is my professional judgment that Title I of the FLASH Act, while attempting to resolve legitimate border security challenges on covered federal lands, takes a blunt approach that is neither needed nor cost-effective," said Krumenaker, who was testifying in behalf of the Coalition to Protect America's National Parks and the Association of National Park Rangers. "It has the potential to irreparably harm some of this nation’s most spectacular and loved landscapes."

Ciscomani has stated that his legislation is needed to improve public safety, reduce "massive trash accumulations," combat marijuana farms, fight wildfires started by undocumented migrants, and prevent those migrants from building housing on federal lands.

But Krumenaker said the congressman's concerns are overstated, at least when it comes to the national park. A 2006 memorandum (MOU) between Homeland Security, Agriculture and Interior has allowed the agencies to successfully deal with migrants coming north from Mexico, he said.

"The MOU specifies that it is not 'intended to prevent' USBP from exercising emergency authorities to access lands including motorized off-road pursuit of suspected cross-border violators at any time, including in wilderness and wilderness study areas, based on the professional judgment of USBP personnel," he testified. "The MOU requires that the Border Patrol respect wilderness constraints, except in cases of emergency, and even then they need to report back to the land management agency what happened and why. The MOU also requires that the land management agency respond expeditiously to USBP requests for infrastructure or operations that would normally be prohibited, and not use wilderness as an excuse to automatically say no.

"Most importantly, the MOU directs that the Border Patrol and the land management agency work together at the lowest level possible to resolve differences.  It further directs that the agencies respect, and to the maximum degree possible, honor each other’s mission."

Goat Mountain, Big Bend National Park/Rebecca Latson file

Opposing the legislation is Wilderness Watch, an advocacy group that says the measure would "essentially eliminate Wilderness on the southern border by amending the Wilderness Act so it doesn't apply to U.S. Customs and Border Protection."

"While we have no illusions that protecting the border is easy, it needs to be done humanely and without destroying our nation’s natural heritage of Wilderness and wildlife," the group said in an email alert. "There is already a buffer zone between designated Wilderness and the southern border, and it’s within that buffer that the activities contemplated in the FLASH Act, if they are necessary at all, need to occur."

At the National Parks Conservation Association, Christina Hazard, the organization's legislative director, applauded sections of the legislation, but said it also carries reporting requirements the Park Service is ill-equipped to handle.

"...the National Park Service has been underfunded for years and recent staffing cuts have only exacerbated the staffing shortfall at parks across the country. At a time when parks are forced to try to do more with less, this bill imposes onerous data collection and reporting requirements on the federal land management agencies," Hazard told the committee in a letter (attached below). "We encourage the committee to support increased funding and staffing for these units so land managers can identify and implement the most efficient and effective solutions to waste collection while ensuring protection of natural, cultural and historic resources."

Traveler footnote: Bob Krumenaker is a member of the National Parks Traveler's board of directors.