The cleanup is costing taxpayers millions
http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=1228
The latest battle in the http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=3352 on illegal immigration isn’t over the smuggling of illegal immigrants, it’s over the trash they leave behind.
Government officials and border activists say the garbage dumped in the desert by illegal immigrants and their smugglers is staggering.
And the cleanup is costing taxpayers millions.
In 2006 alone, more than 1.18 million pounds of trash was collected along southern http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=3377 border, many in the meeting spots where immigrants rest, change clothes and wait to hitch a ride further north with a smuggler.
Arizonia officials have spent approximately $4.4 million over five years to clean up the mess, that continues to build with each crossing. Nearly $1 million was spent for 2007 from a base BLM appropriation.
Border Patrol’s Tucson sector, which covers most of the Arizona border, doesn’t have statistics about how many people cross through each year, but on average, agents apprehend 1,500 people a day, with 378,000 caught in 2007 alone.The trash is a problem that activist groups, like the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, say will not stop until the nation’s southern border is secured.
“It’s just like a flood,” said Chris Simcox, the president of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps. “You can’t clean up the floodwaters until you stop the flood and fix the dam.”
Successful efforts by the Border Patrol to secure well-trafficked crossing spots in San Diego and El Paso have forced many immigrants to cross through federal and state lands along the Arizona border adding to the trash problem, McFarlin said.
Since 2003, the Arizona BLM has run a project to mitigate the damage caused by the migration of illegal immigrants along the state’s border with Mexico.
“What we’re beginning to wonder is how extensive is the problem?” McFarlin said. “How many millions of pounds of garbage? How many roads are really damaged? How many miles of illegal trails?”
McFarlin’s agency works with local government, student volunteers and civic groups to bag trash in wilderness areas frequented by immigrants.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,354398,00.html