The US-Mexico border stretches from the pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico running a total length of 1,954 miles (United States Border Fence). Four US States and six Mexican states sit on either side of the line. The number of crossings that occur legally each year exceeds the total population of the United States. The border has become the kinetic hotpoint of economic, cultural, social, and criminal activity. It is also happens to pass through some of the most biologically diverse regions in North America home to an impressive variety of plants and animals as well as habitats that exist nowhere else in the world. The huge latitudinal distance the border means it passes through an extreme and varied mix of climates, elevations, geographic variation, and habitats. The value of the border region is validated by the high number of National Parks, monuments, refuges, and wilderness areas created over the years to preserve the rich natural heritage.
Unfortunately the southwest also has the highest rate of species endangerment in the country (Archibold, Randal C). The border’s most well known contribution to environmental damage is the walls and fences built along it. And while the habitat fragmentation caused by the construction of a physical barrier like a wall is easy to quantify and its effects are without a doubt devastating, there are many other contributing factors related to the policies around the region and the resulting intensity of human activity concentrated in a thin but vital stip of land. The act of policing such a massive frontier necessitates an entire infrastructure built around supporting such an endeavor. Infrastructure like roads for construction and border patrol that were built through the formerly roadless Otay mountain Wilderness Area in California (Border Fences Pose Threats). The only viable way for the US government to achieve this in an area home to so many legally protected swaths of land was to enact a set of laws giving them impunity to waive over 37 federal laws meant to preserve the land (Real ID Waiver Authority). This unprecedented overreach of power is granted to the federal government through the real ID act. Some notable acts include previously untouchables like, “Endangered Species Act,” “Clean Air Act,” Wilderness Act,” and the “Native American Graves Protection Act” to name a few (Real ID Waiver Authority).
Desert ecosystems like those along the border are some of the most susceptible to the negative impacts of climate change meaning the human disruptions taking place here are amplified (Archibold, Randal C). The border walls disrupt migration and movement of wildlife, which also impairs the exchange of genetic information between populations who are isolated from other potential breeding populations (U.S.-Mexico Border Wall Could Threaten Wildlife). Already endangered animals will go extinct in a matter of generations if the populations remain too small and isolated and genetic bottlenecks form (U.S.-Mexico Border Wall Could Threaten Wildlife). The Jaguar which has in the past been sighted in Arizona and New Mexico is not expected to ever again be seen in the United States because its former territorial swaths are now blocked (Border Fences Pose Threats).
Inhibiting the flow of wildlife across southwestern habitats is the most publicized impact of the heavily defended borders, but other unintended consequences have arisen. Hastily constructed barriers built for the sole purpose of impeding human movement with little to no consideration for local geographic conditions are beginning to backfire in strange ways. The border wall erected in Nogales, Mexico resulted in flooding that inundated houses and caused deaths and millions in damage (Splitting the Land in Two). Walls in Texas have blocked grazers historic access to the Rio Grande. And in pipe organ National Monument flooding resulted from a wall built in violation of environmental law (United States Border Fence). The consequences of disrupting natural systems with such aggressively unnatural modifications are starting to reveal themselves all along the border.
Proponents of the wall may argue that the ends justify the means, and the degradation of the environment is a necessary evil to prevent potentially dangerous individuals from entering the US. The opposite is in fact true, the Border Patrol’s own statistic show decreased crossings in unwalled areas and increases in heavily walled areas (Splitting the Land in Two). Dangerous stretches of mountains and deserts that the Border Patrol hoped the new walls would deter migrants from using have also seen increases in foot traffic and the accompanying deaths from exposure (Splitting the Land in Two). All intended goals of a barrier between the US and Mexico have failed and more often backfired with a host of unforeseen consequences.The wall is purely an affectation of a nation’s irrational fear and serves no real purpose. Without a modern unified vision of our shared border we will only continue the expedient decimation of the ecology of the desert southwest. 
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