Don't Divide Our Habitats, Ecosystems and Communities

Some 25 million acres of protected U.S. public lands lie within 100 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border, including six national park sites. These parks include delicate desert landscapes, a wide range of specially adapted plant and animal species, the Rio Grande Wild and Scenic River, and sensitive cultural sites.

The six parks affected are:

• Amistad National Recreation Area
• Big Bend National Park
• Chamizal National Monument
• Coronado National Memorial
• Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument
• Rio Grande Wild and Scenic River

The federal government has already constructed 650 miles of walls and fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border, all of it designed and built without any environmental reviews. These current border walls not only divide communities and neighborhoods, they also block wildlife migration, destroy delicate park ecosystems, disrupt the flow of water and limit access to important cultural heritage sites.

Press Release

Already Short-Staffed Park Service Asked to Support Border Patrol Security

This decision could have serious consequences for national parks already struggling with a reduction in staff.

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Additional border wall construction could devastate some of our country’s most treasured landscapes and hurt local communities that rely on these places for their livelihoods.

In May 2018, the Trump administration announced a plan to temporarily reassign National Park Service law enforcement personnel to patrol the U.S.-Mexico border in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Arizona and Amistad National Recreation Area in Texas. This decision could have serious consequences for national parks and their visitors at a time when the Park Service is struggling with an 11 percent reduction in staff and a 19 percent increase in visitation.

NPCA opposes efforts to authorize or fund any new walls or fences along the U.S.-Mexico border, questions the rationale for temporarily reassigning Park Service staff to patrol the border, and advocates repealing the Department of Homeland Security’s authority to waive any laws necessary to expedite border construction or carry out other damaging enforcement activities on federal lands.