On a recent Sunday, some friends and I slipped a canoe into the cool, clear water of the Rio Grande at the eastern tip of Starr County, just below Falcon Lake.

We waved to a group of young boys, laughing as they cast fishing lures into the current.

I watched an osprey splash into the water and rise back into the air, clutching a fish in its talons. Green jays, Altamira orioles and ringed kingfishers — rare and beautiful species that draw birdwatchers from all over the world — darted from Texas mesquite to centuries-old Montezuma cypress trees.

Any notion of a national emergency along this international border seemed laughable. We spent a peaceful day on the river without seeing a single Border Patrol agent or border crosser.

But this incredible corridor of water and wildlife, these fishing holes and picnic spots, will soon be walled off from Starr County residents and the rest of the U.S. forever.

You’d never know that by watching the national news or listening to Washington, D.C., politicians.

When Congress voted to end Trump’s government shutdown in February, both sides lauded the deal and claimed victory. But they gave up something irreplaceable. The budget deal included nearly $1.4 billion for new border walls along this beautiful river.

In a cruelty hard to comprehend, these funds will be used to wall the entire county off from its water source and recreational lands. Private properties will be seized, wildlife refuges bulldozed and the people of Starr County stripped of access to their lifeblood and natural heritage.

Starr County is the poorest county in Texas and the most Hispanic county in the nation, with more than half the population below the poverty line and 95 percent identifying as Hispanic. When politicians in Washington, D.C., strike a deal, places like Starr County are often thrown under the bus.

To build the wall in Starr County, at least 10 wildlife refuge tracts — all part of the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge — will be destroyed. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service describes the wildlife refuge as “one of the most biodiverse regions in North America.”

A rare Montezuma cypress tree on the south side of the river. Photo: Laiken Jordahl

In a region where 95 percent of native habitat has been lost to development, the natural corridor along the Rio Grande River is the last ribbon of green for wildlife. It now hangs by a thread. The wall here will slice this tiny ribbon in two.

The Department of Homeland security is rapidly moving forward with construction preparations.

Property owners have received right-of-entry requests from U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Bright pink flags have been staked on wildlife refuge land, marking where the new wall will be built.

People like Nayda Alvarez will watch their homes be demolished. Nayda is a high school teacher whose family has lived on the banks of the Rio Grande in Starr County for at least five generations.

“I didn’t choose this fight,” Nayda told me recently, standing on her property’s riverbank looking across the Rio Grande into Mexico.

Legal options for landowners are slim. Through eminent domain the government has power to seize land at lightning speed. The feds can file a declaration of taking one day and roll in bulldozers the next.

To make matters worse, the Department of Homeland Security has a longstanding and well-documented pattern of low-balling landowners. In Starr County, few can afford attorneys to fight for a reasonable payment.

Starr County is being quietly sacrificed to Trump’s border hysteria. While politicians spew talking points about the morality of the border wall and pass “compromise” budgets, the people of Starr County are poised to lose everything.

Their loss diminishes all of us. Take a paddle down the Rio Grande and see for yourself, while you still can.

Laiken Jordahl works at the Center for Biological Diversity, where he focuses on protecting wildlife, ecosystems and communities throughout the U.S.-Mexico borderlands.

Imagine a beautiful, flowing river, teeming with birds and wildlife. Families gather along the banks laughing, grilling, playing music and napping in the sun. A dip in the cool water keeps the brutal Texas heat at bay. The river invigorates, offering a reminder that you’re alive and all of this is a gift.

This has been the reality for border residents on the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo for generations. It’s a river with two names and two countries, but one people who depend on its lifegiving waters. The river, after all, is why these communities exist in the first place.

The river also sustains a true biological wonderland, providing habitat and sustenance to more than 400 species of birds and some of the most incredible biodiversity in the United States.

Try to access the Rio Grande today and you may think you’ve wandered into a warzone. Coils of stacked concertina wire line its banks for miles, with thousands of razor-sharp spikes ready to ensnare the skin, fur or feathers of any creature who tries to wander through.

Border communities like Eagle Pass, Texas, have seen their public parks seized by the state and staked out with Humvees and fatigued soldiers armed to the teeth. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s border force recently erected a wall of shipping containers adorned with military-grade razor-wire straight through the town’s main riverfront park, cutting off access to the Rio Grande.

Abbott also deployed what he calls a “floating wall” through the middle of this binational river. This is a lethal obstacle with buoys joined by circular saw blades, underwater netting and weights intended to snag and drown border crossers.

Critics have labeled it a “drowning device.” The Department of Justice is suing to force its removal. But Abbott sees it as a great chance for a photo op and held a press conference there last month.

This has become a familiar scene for border residents. We’re used to politicians storming into our communities with armadas of security, a mouthful of fearsome words, and a polished podium. They get their soundbite and fly back to their suburban mansions neat and tidy, without looking a single border resident in the eyes.

While border security doesn’t fall under the purview of state government, former Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey and Abbott have tried to make names for themselves by embracing fearmongering rhetoric and upping the cruelty ante.

I saw the trail of carnage left behind when Ducey built a border wall out of shipping containers through some of Arizona’s most biologically sensitive landscapes. His crews plowed over ancient oak trees, bladed sweeping grassland wilderness, and bulldozed new roads through designated critical habitat for endangered jaguars.

Ducey finally removed the containers, after the Justice Department sued, but the damage from his publicity stunt will take generations to heal, and Arizona taxpayers are stuck with the $200 million bill. He got his tough-talking photo op, terrorized rural border communities and wildlife, and sped back to Phoenix before the sun set.

This calamitous border saga wound to a close when Ducey backed down in the face of the federal lawsuit and protesters put their bodies in front of construction equipment and camped at the site in sub-freezing temperatures. But we’ll be left to deal with the consequences for decades to come.

Ducey’s border folly in Arizona was heartless and destructive. What Abbott is doing along the Rio Grande in Texas is an order of magnitude worse.

Where families once picnicked along the river, children are now suffering lacerations from the razor wire traps. At least four people drowned in Eagle Pass last month, including an infant. Just weeks ago, a pregnant woman miscarried her baby while entangled in concertina wire.

According to a Texas Department of Public Safety medic and whistleblower, troopers have been ordered to “push small children and nursing babies back into the Rio Grande.” Recently two more bodies were found in the Rio Grande — one stuck in the orange buoys of the floating wall and another just upstream.

Abbott’s strategy here is clear: Inflict the maximum amount of suffering on the most vulnerable people by turning the Rio Grande into a death trap. People dying is part of the plan.

And it’s not just vulnerable asylum seekers who are being harmed. Amid this historic wave of extreme heat, a wall of concertina wire now separates wildlife from their water source. Deer, bobcats, javelinas and black bears will be unable to access the river, blocked by the razor wire.

Abbott is transforming south Texas’s lifeblood and cherished natural heritage into a death trap for people and other animals alike. All this for a photo op.

In Arizona Ducey gave up on his border stunt when it became clear he’d lose in court. Abbott should reverse course without waiting for a judge to make him, before more people and wildlife die.

Laiken Jordahl is the Center for Biological Diversity’s Southwest conservation advocate.

What Texas Should Learn From Arizona’s Border Failure was originally published in Center for Biological Diversity on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

By Gail Emrick and Laiken Jordahl

The coronavirus outbreak provides more proof that the Trump administration sees border communities and indigenous nations as expendable.

Not content with bulldozing national monuments and destroying sacred Native American sites, Trump is now taking advantage of the pandemic to accelerate construction of his border wall in Arizona and across the borderlands. He’s adding to the long, painful legacy of injustice against indigenous people and other frontline communities, who are disproportionately falling ill and dying from the virus.

By sending thousands of construction workers into rural border towns, Trump is risking Arizonans’ lives and the health of our communities. All for a misguided campaign promise.

We live in the borderlands and work to protect the health and wellbeing of people, wildlife and wild places from a litany of assaults ― from underfunded public health programs to the extinction of animals like our revered native jaguar.

It’s appalling to see border wall construction intensify in the midst of this deadly pandemic.

We’re stunned to watch construction workers moving through our communities and ignoring the important public health practices we’ve all embraced to flatten the curve and save lives.

Earlier this month a group of 20 workers crowded into a small store in Ajo, spurring the store owner to plead with the construction company to require employees to take commonsense social distancing precautions.

We don’t yet know the toll the coronavirus will take on rural communities. We do know that Ajo is a small town with few health care providers and a sizeable population of older residents who are more vulnerable to serious complications from it.

Border-wall workers, who are arriving from all around the U.S., could spread the virus with each trip they make to our local stores, gas stations and motels in isolated rural communities, which often lack the health-care capacity to care for their own residents ― much less a surge of potentially ill construction workers.

The Army’s Lt. Gen. Todd Semonite recently said there were more than 4,000 workers building the wall. They live in tight quarters, sometimes called “man camps,” and travel to and from their worksites on weekends. They could already be spreading the virus to our communities and bringing it home to their families across the country when they leave.

Arizona’s border counties have more than 2,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 161 deaths, but the state has tested only a tiny fraction of people. It’s impossible to know how widespread the virus really is.

Fast-tracking wall construction defies stay-at-home orders issued by governors in Arizona and New Mexico, who’ve wisely pressed pause on non-essential services and urged people not to congregate.

But let’s be clear, there’s nothing “essential” about the border wall. The wall won’t stop people or drugs from coming into the country. It won’t protect us from the virus that’s turned our lives upside-down and brought the economy to a screeching halt.

Trump’s fixation on building the wall is risking the lives of Americans for nothing but a misguided campaign promise.

Imagine if the thousands of construction workers building the wall were instead building hospitals, crisis centers and critical infrastructure to fight the pandemic?

What if some of the $18 billion wasted on ineffective barriers were used to train the new army of public health care workers needed to perform testing and contact tracing to jump on the next inevitable outbreak?

If just a fraction of our nation’s funds Trump is spending on his wall were instead used for coronavirus response and future pandemic prevention and preparation, we could save thousands of lives.

If there was ever a time to realize the futility of building the wall, it is now.

Border wall construction must stop, before more people die.

Gail Emrick, a lifelong Southern Arizona resident, and a Public Voices Fellow, is the executive director of the Southeast Arizona Area Health Education Center in Nogales, Ariz., and serves on the Binational Health Council of Ambos Nogales.

Laiken Jordahl is the borderlands campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity, where he focuses on protecting wildlife, ecosystems and communities throughout the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. Twitter: @LaikenJordahl

Trump Endangers Arizonans, Risks Spreading Virus to Build Wall was originally published in Center for Biological Diversity on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

On a recent Sunday, some friends and I slipped a canoe into the cool, clear water of the Rio Grande at the eastern tip of Starr County, just below Falcon Lake.

We waved to a group of young boys, laughing as they cast fishing lures into the current.

I watched an osprey splash into the water and rise back into the air, clutching a fish in its talons. Green jays, Altamira orioles and ringed kingfishers — rare and beautiful species that draw birdwatchers from all over the world — darted from Texas mesquite to centuries-old Montezuma cypress trees.

Any notion of a national emergency along this international border seemed laughable. We spent a peaceful day on the river without seeing a single Border Patrol agent or border crosser.

But this incredible corridor of water and wildlife, these fishing holes and picnic spots, will soon be walled off from Starr County residents and the rest of the U.S. forever.

You’d never know that by watching the national news or listening to Washington, D.C., politicians.

When Congress voted to end Trump’s government shutdown in February, both sides lauded the deal and claimed victory. But they gave up something irreplaceable. The budget deal included nearly $1.4 billion for new border walls along this beautiful river.

In a cruelty hard to comprehend, these funds will be used to wall the entire county off from its water source and recreational lands. Private properties will be seized, wildlife refuges bulldozed and the people of Starr County stripped of access to their lifeblood and natural heritage.

Starr County is the poorest county in Texas and the most Hispanic county in the nation, with more than half the population below the poverty line and 95 percent identifying as Hispanic. When politicians in Washington, D.C., strike a deal, places like Starr County are often thrown under the bus.

To build the wall in Starr County, at least 10 wildlife refuge tracts — all part of the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge — will be destroyed. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service describes the wildlife refuge as “one of the most biodiverse regions in North America.”

In a region where 95 percent of native habitat has been lost to development, the natural corridor along the Rio Grande River is the last ribbon of green for wildlife. It now hangs by a thread. The wall here will slice this tiny ribbon in two.

The Department of Homeland security is rapidly moving forward with construction preparations.

Property owners have received right-of-entry requests from U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Bright pink flags have been staked on wildlife refuge land, marking where the new wall will be built.

People like Nayda Alvarez will watch their homes be demolished. Nayda is a high school teacher whose family has lived on the banks of the Rio Grande in Starr County for at least five generations.

“I didn’t choose this fight,” Nayda told me recently, standing on her property’s riverbank looking across the Rio Grande into Mexico.

Legal options for landowners are slim. Through eminent domain the government has power to seize land at lightning speed. The feds can file a declaration of taking one day and roll in bulldozers the next.

To make matters worse, the Department of Homeland Security has a longstanding and well-documented pattern of low-balling landowners. In Starr County, few can afford attorneys to fight for a reasonable payment.

Starr County is being quietly sacrificed to Trump’s border hysteria. While politicians spew talking points about the morality of the border wall and pass “compromise” budgets, the people of Starr County are poised to lose everything.

Their loss diminishes all of us. Take a paddle down the Rio Grande and see for yourself, while you still can.

Laiken Jordahl works at the Center for Biological Diversity, where he focuses on protecting wildlife, ecosystems and communities throughout the U.S.-Mexico borderlands.

What Happens When You Wall Off a River? was originally published in Center for Biological Diversity on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

La trivialidad con la que se discute la nomenclatura existente del muro de Trump es una terrible distracción sobre las muertes y la destrucción que acompaña la construcción de este muro.

No importa si le llaman muro, enrejado, cerca o verja, está hecho de concreto y columnas de acero. Todas piezas inamovibles, que obstruyen abruptamente el paisaje y han sido sinónimo de una barrera de miseria para las personas y para el medioambiente. Miles de millas de esta barrera continúan aterrorizando las comunidades y biodiversidad fronteriza.

Por décadas, aquellos de nosotros que vivimos en lugares cerca o en la frontera hemos llamado a esta barrera de una misma y única manera: muro fronterizo. Nadie que ha estado de pie ante la sombra de una pared de 30 pies con columnas de acero pudiera referirse a eso como sólo un simple “enrejado”.

Mientras tanto, la rabieta de Trump cerrar el gobierno va entrando en su tercera semana, algunos senadores demócratas han dicho que están en contra del muro de Trump, pero pudieran estar a favor de un “enrejado” en la frontera.

Este “enrejado” como quieren llamarle para suavizar la realidad ante los oídos de los ciudadanos con conciencia, es el mismo peligroso y mortífero diseño que las patrullas fronterizas (Border Patrol), el Congreso y las comunidades fronterizas hemos llamado muro por décadas.

El debate Muro vs. Enrejado tiene a los eruditos buscando en los diccionarios y a los políticos de ambos partidos moldeando sus puntos de discurso. Pero la realidad es que no hay diferencia moral entre las palabras muro y enrejado. Un miembro del Congreso que vote en contra de un muro debe mantener su oposición a un enrejado.

Siguen perdiendo los ocelotes, el lobo gris mexicano y el berrendo Sonorense. No importa cómo le llamen: muro, pared, verja, enrejado, sin importar la nomenclatura, sigue existiendo el daño. Todas detienen las migraciones naturales y ponen en peligro la supervivencia de más de 90 especies nativas y/o salvajes.

Todas crean obstrucciones de escombros e inundaciones catastróficas.

Todas cortan a través de terrenos de patrimonio público con inmenso valor escénico y biodiversidad espectacular. Lugares que son remanso de paz para muchas especies y santuarios para nativo americanos. Lugares que representan una reserva internacional de la biósfera.

Dividen naciones indígenas y empujan a los inmigrantes a terrenos mucho más peligrosos, donde miles mueren.

Cruzan por terrenos privados que han sido propiedad de familias por generaciones y han sido arrebatados por el gobierno.

Todas las nomenclaturas anteriores cuestan billones de dólares a los contribuyentes sin hacer ninguna diferencia al problema de tráfico humano o de drogas.

Sabemos por vasta evidencia científica y experiencia que el muro y/o barrera que Trump y el Congreso contemplan representan daños irreparables. El debate de la nomenclatura es un ejercicio de gimnasia lingüística/ semántica hecha para distraer, confundir y engañar.

Mientras la presión sobre el cierre de gobierno aumenta, no debe perderse de perspectiva que el Congreso ha aprobado 1.7 billones de dólares en presupuesto para la construcción del muro desde que Trump juramentó en la oficina presidencial.

El Departamento de Seguridad Nacional de los Estados Unidos (The Department of Homeland Security) completó recientemente 20 millas del nuevo diseño de la frontera, a través de un lugar remoto y pacífico del desierto de Nuevo México, luego de haber ignorado ilegalmente 25 leyes ambientales. Es un paisaje horroroso que costó 73 millones de dólares y ya se encuentra lastimando la naturaleza rebanando el hábitat natural en dos partes.

Otras 33 millas adicionales de este muro están planificadas para ser construídas en el Valle de Rio Grande.

Treinta pies de concreto y acero cruzarán la parte baja del Refujio Nacional de Vida Silvestre en el Valle de Rio Grande, Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge, que ha sido descrito por el departamento de Pesca y Vida Silvestre de los Estados Unidos (US Fish and Wildlife) como uno de los lugares con mayor biodiversidad en Norteamérica. La mayoría del Parque Estatal de Bentsen-Rio Grande, una estación de observación de aves, quedará al sur de este nuevo muro.

Ante este muro tambié se perdió el Centro Nacional de las Mariposas y la Capilla de La Lomita. (National Butterfly Center ,La Lomita Chapel).

Para colmo, la administración de Trump planea expropiar a cientos de familias que subsisten de sus pequeñas granjas.

La definición del daño que sienten las personas y la vida silvestre es muy clara. Y el futuro solo proyecta ser aún más escalofriante.

Todo está visible, todo está muy claro. A cualquiera que le interese, suelte el diccionario, deje el juego semántico y échele un vistazo.

Laiken Jordahl tarabaja por el Centro para Diversidad Biológica, enfocado de proteger fauna silvestre, ecosistemas, y comunidades en la tierra de la frontera entre el EE.UU. y Mexico.

Traducido por: Myrelis Diaz Martinez, Coordinadora enlace a la Comunidad Latina del Centro para la Diversidad Biológica.

La Semántica Detrás del Muro: Una Peligrosa Distracción was originally published in Center for Biological Diversity on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

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The bickering over what to call President Trump’s border wall is a dangerous distraction from the death and destruction these barriers already have caused.

It doesn’t matter whether they’re called walls or fences, or whether they’re made of concrete or steel slats. They’re all immovable, landscape-scale obstructions that wreak havoc on people and the environment. Hundreds of miles of these barriers already terrorize communities and wildlife in the borderlands.

For decades, those of us on the border have called these barriers one thing and one thing only: border walls. No one who’s stood in the shadow of a 30-foot steel bollard wall would dismiss it as just a “fence.”

But now, as Trump’s temper tantrum of a shutdown drags into its third week, some Senate Democrats are signaling that they oppose Trump’s wall, but could support border “fencing.”

This border “fencing” is the same dangerous design that Border Patrol, Congress and those of us who live on the border have called border “walls” for decades.

The wall vs. fence debate has national pundits looking up dictionary definitions and politicians from both parties sharpening their talking points. But there is no difference between a wall and a fence. A member of Congress who opposes a “wall” must also vote against a “fence.”

Indeed, the finer points are lost on ocelots, Mexican wolves and Sonoran pronghorn. Fence, wall, whatever. They all stop natural migrations that are essential to the survival of wildlife, and they jeopardize the existence of more than 90 endangered and threatened species.

They create debris dams and cause catastrophic flooding.

They slice through spectacular public lands including national parks, wilderness areas and an international biosphere reserve.

They divide tribal nations and communities and push migrants into dangerous terrain, where thousands perish.

They cross private property ― some owned by families for generations ― that has been seized by the government through eminent domain.

And they cost taxpayers billions of dollars, while doing nothing to stop drug or human trafficking.

We know from science and experience that the border barriers Trump and Congress are contemplating will do real damage. The fence vs. wall debate is linguistic gymnastics intended to deflect and deceive.

As pressure mounts to end the government shutdown, it’s important to remember that Congress has already funded $1.7 billion for border wall construction since Trump took office.

The Department of Homeland Security recently completed 20 miles of new bollard-style barriers along a remote, peaceful stretch of New Mexico desert, after illegally waiving 25 environmental laws. It’s a $73 million eyesore that’s already harming wildlife by slicing pristine desert habitat in two.

Another 33 miles of new walls are planned in the Rio Grande Valley.

Thirty-foot levee walls of concrete and steel will cut through the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge, described by U.S. Fish and Wildlife as “one of the most biodiverse regions in North America.” Most of Bentsen-Rio Grande State Park, an international bird-watching destination, will end up south of this new wall.

Also lost to the wall: The National Butterfly Center and historic La Lomita Chapel.

To top it off, the Trump administration will seize land from hundreds of private properties and family farms.

The destruction that’s already been wrought is plain as day to the people and animals who live along the borderlands. The future is even more frightening.

It’s all there, for anyone who bothers to put down their dictionary, quit the semantic games and take a look.

Laiken Jordahl works at the Center for Biological Diversity, where he focuses on protecting wildlife, ecosystems and communities throughout the U.S.-Mexico borderlands.

Border Wall Semantics: A Dangerous Distraction was originally published in Center for Biological Diversity on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Saturday, Dec. 8, 2018 | 2 a.m.

Reprint of an op-ed in first published in Inside Sources

Deep in this beautiful wilderness of sagebrush, wildflowers and soaptree yucca, a freshly minted 18-foot-high steel barrier towers over the landscape. Out here in the remote New Mexico desert, the new border wall is the only man-made structure in sight.

This is a serene and silent place. There’s no military. No Border Patrol. No signs of migrant crossings. And, until recently, there was no border wall. The mass of metal looks more like an abstract art installation than a border-security tactic. It seems absurdly out of place.

In April, bulldozers descended on this peaceful stretch of desert to rip open the earth and erect 20 miles of President Donald Trump’s border wall. To rush construction, the Trump administration waived dozens of environmental and public-health laws that protect endangered wildlife, Native American graves, clean air and clean water, among other things.

The wall here is already doing real damage. It’s an impassable barrier that stops animal migrations essential to the survival of many wildlife species.

That’s not speculation. Radio-collar data show an endangered Mexican wolf migrating across the border through this very stretch of desert in 2017. Wolves know no borders. They need vast expanses of wild habitat to survive. Had the wolf found a hulking steel barrier in his path, he’d have had no choice but to turn back, axing his chances of finding a mate and undercutting the odds of his species’ recovery.

The bollard-style walls will also obstruct the natural migration of species like kit foxes, bighorn sheep and ringtail cats. The border wall will stop these animals from finding food and water, fragment wildlife populations and increase the risk of disease. The Center for Biological Diversity, where I work, has sued to challenge border wall construction here. A hearing in U.S. District Court in Washington is scheduled for Dec. 18.

I first visited the area, just west of the Santa Teresa Port of Entry, in January, soon after the Department of Homeland Security waived dozens of laws and signaled its intention to start construction. I came back in June to join more than 400 community members, scientists and activists to protest this senseless and destructive project. And I returned again recently to see the status of construction.

Although I knew what to expect, it was heartbreaking to see. This wall in the wild is a $73 million eyesore, an insane waste of taxpayer funds and an affront to immigrant and border communities. It’s an immovable metal mass, baking in the sun and waiting to rust.

Politicians from both parties voted to fund this section of wall by approving a provision bundled into the 2017 appropriations bill. It didn’t get much coverage, and media still claim that Trump hasn’t built any new border wall. But no one who’s seen this New Mexico desert before and after this year’s construction could say that.

Now, Congress is pushing for more border wall funding before Democrats take the House in January. Trump and Republicans want $5 billion, and Trump says he’s willing to shut down the government to get it. That’s enough to build hundreds of miles of new border walls.

As negotiations and rhetoric ramp up, we need to remind Congress and Trump what most of the U.S.-Mexico border really looks like.

Our sprawling borderlands are peaceful and among the most biodiverse regions in the country. You’re more likely to see mountain lions, bobcats and javelina than cross paths with immigrants or smugglers. These landscapes are a national treasure, home to endangered species and protected wilderness areas, national parks and wildlife refuges.

It’s not too late to stop more miles of wall from being funded, but members of Congress need to hear from people who oppose it.

We can’t afford to lose another inch of these spectacular wild places to Trump’s border wall.

Laiken Jordahl works at the Center for Biological Diversity, where he focuses on protecting wildlife, ecosystems and communities throughout the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. He wrote this for InsideSources.com.