Letters

FORGOTTEN BORDER

In "No Man's Land" (Horneland Security,

July), Katherine McIntire Peters neglects to mention the federal agencies that must manage the lands along the U.S.-Mexico border in southern Arizona. The Bureau of Land Management, Coronado National Monument, Buenos Aires Wildlife Refuge, Organ Pipe Monument and Coronado National Forest all are pushed beyond their legitimate missions. At the Coronado National Forest, which accounts for a 60-mile stretch, employees are working alone and unarmed. Only three law enforcement officers are assigned to the two most affected districts, Nogales and Sierra Vista.

While the Customs Service and the INS' Border Patrol are worried about the impossible task of halting illegal immigration, Forest Service law enforcement officers have the added responsibility of managing the damage it causes to natural resources. Illegal immigrants have left a trail of trash, abandoned vehicles, downed fences, even forest and brush fires (including five major ones this year in Oversite, Merritt, Ryan,Walker and Community). Agencies trying to apprehend illegal immigrants also have left their mark. Roads,ATV trails and surveillance equipment, for example, all overwhelm the landscape a landscape that no longer fits the mission of any of the land management agencies involved.