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Just in case you hadnï ? ? €™t noticed, the budget bill that passed the House of Representatives ï ? ? €” the one that does so many favors for the already wildly wealthy, including offering a ï ? ? €œ$235 billion tax break to the top two-tenths of 1%ï ? ? € of Americans ï ? ? €” will also spend a whopping $46.5 billion (yes, billion!) to construct more of Donald Trumpï ? ? €™s wall along the U.S.-Mexican border. That includes building it across the San Rafael Valley south of Tucson, Arizona, which, as the Guardian reports, almost no human immigrants ever cross. That area is, however, crucial to a variety of migrant wild animals, including bears, mountain lions, and subtropical species like ï ? ? €œthe wild pig-like javelina, and rare big cats ï ? ? €” ocelots and jaguars, with natural ranges of hundreds of miles between countries in search of food, water, and mates.ï ? ? € In short, it is (or at least was) ï ? ? €œa critical wildlife corridor for animals migrating between Mexico and Arizona.ï ? ? € And as climate change only increases the heat south of the border, it will be even more crucial for such species to be able to migrate across it when needed.
More crucial to them, yes ï ? ? €” but not, of course, to Donald Trump or House and Senate Republicans who undoubtedly couldnï ? ? €™t give less of a damn about such creatures, just as most of them donï ? ? €™t seem to give a damn about the overheating future that lies ahead of us all. (Only recently Texas, for instance, experienced record-breaking spring heat, making parts of it hotter than Death Valley, California, ï ? ? €œoften cited as the hottest place on Earth.ï ? ? €)
Climate change? Trump and crew evidently couldnï ? ? €™t care less. After all, they just gave the boot to some of the worldï ? ? €™s top climate scientists and no longer even plan to track the build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Worse yet, the country thatï ? ? €™s already the global leader in producing oil and exporting natural gas is now planning to produce yet more of them and, as environmentalist Bill McKibben reminds us, ï ? ? €œtold California (and the 11 states that had followed it) that it couldnï ? ? €™t demand the phaseout of internal combustion vehicles by the middle of the next decade.ï ? ? €
All in all, itï ? ? €™s already quite a record. And given that this planetï ? ? €™s heating up in a distinctly record fashion and, as border expert and TomDispatch regular Todd Miller reminds us today, human migration to this country is being driven by just such heat, itï ? ? €™s truly hard to imagine the world our children and grandchildren will find themselves in. Still, while youï ? ? €™re thinking about that, take a moment to travel with Miller to those U.S.-Mexican borderlands and consider the all-too-daunting sights there, as well as at the latest annual gathering of what heï ? ? €™s come to call the border-industrial complex. Tom
Upside-Down World
Climate Change and the Border-Industrial Complex in the Trump Era
By Todd Miller
Believe it or not, I had a transcendent experience at this yearï ? ? €™s Border Security Expo, the annual event that brings Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) together with private industry. I hesitate to describe it that way, though, because I was on the exhibition hall floor and instantly found myself in the very heart of the U.S. border-industrial complex. It was early April and I was surrounded by the latest surveillance equipment ï ? ? €” camera systems, drones, robodogs ï ? ? €” from about 225 companies (a record number for such an event) displaying their wares at that Phoenix Convention Center. Many of the people there seemed all too excited that Donald Trump was once again president.
You might wonder how itï ? ? €™s even possible to have a mystical experience while visiting this countryï ? ? €™s largest annual border surveillance fair and I would agree, especially since my moment came just after Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem gave the keynote speech to a packed convention center ballroom. Perhaps you wonï ? ? €™t be surprised to learn that Noem, who had infamously worn a $50,000 Rolex watch to a Salvadoran ï ? ? €œterrorismï ? ? € prison photo shoot just weeks before, received rousing ovation after ovation, as she claimed that the Trump administration had almost achieved ï ? ? €œoperational controlï ? ? € of the U.S.-Mexican border. (Only a little more to go, she insisted!) The same point had been made by ï ? ? €œborder czarï ? ? € Thomas Homan earlier that day. Both asked the audience to give standing ovations to all border law enforcement officials in the room for, as Noem put it, enduring the ï ? ? €œtrain wreck and poor leadership of Joe Biden leading this country.ï ? ? € And like those who preceded her, she used words like ï ? ? €œinvasionï ? ? € abundantly, suggesting that an all-too-fragile United States was battling a siege of unknown proportions.
The late Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano had a name for just such an experience: an ï ? ? €œupside-down world,ï ? ? € he called it. In such a world, weï ? ? €™re presented not with the facts but their very opposite. For the border-industrial complex, however, itï ? ? €™s just such an inverted world that sells their product.
Then it happened. I was walking down a corridor lined with drone companies, including one from India called ideaForge, whose medium-sized drone was ï ? ? €œbuilt like a birdï ? ? € and ï ? ? €œtested like a tank.ï ? ? € There were also sophisticated artificial intelligence camera systems mounted on masts atop armored ground drones, which might be considered the perfect combination of todayï ? ? €™s modern border technology. There was also the company Fat Truck, whose vehicles had tires taller than my car. X-ray and biometric systems surrounded me, along with green-uniformed Border Patrol agents, sheriffs from border counties, and ICE agents checking the equipment. As always, you could practically smell the cash in the air. Of my 13 years covering the Border Security Expo, this was clearly the largest and most enthusiastic one ever.
I was walking through it all on one of those worn blue carpets found in convention centers and then, suddenly, I wasnï ? ? €™t walking there at all. Instead, I was in the Sierra Tarahumara in the state of Chihuahua, Mexico, with a Rarà ï ? ?muri man named Mario Quiroz. I had been there with him the previous week, so it was indeed a memory, but so vivid it essentially overcame me. I could smell the forest near the Copper Canyon, one of the most beautiful places on the planet. I could see Quiroz showing me the drying yellowish trees cracking everywhere amid a mega-drought of staggering proportions. I could even catch a glimpse of the fractured Rà o Conchos, the Mexican river that, at the border, would become the Rio Grande. It was drying up and the trees along it were dying, while many local people were finding that they had little choice but to migrate elsewhere to make ends meet.
I had to sit down. When I did, I suddenly found myself back at the expo in that stale air-conditioned environment that only promises yet more surveillance towers and drones on that very border. Then came the realization that gave me pause: although that devastated Sierra Tarahumara terrain and the Border Security Expo couldnï ? ? €™t be more different, they are, in fact, also intimately connected. After all, Sierra Tarahumara represents the all too palpable and devastating reality of climate change and the way itï ? ? €™s already beginning to displace people, while the Expo represented my countryï ? ? €™s most prominent response to that displacement (and the Global Northï ? ? €™s more generally). For the United States ï ? ? €” increasingly so in the age of Donald Trump ï ? ? €” the only answer to the climate crisis and its mass displacement of people is yet more border enforcement.
ï ? ? €œUnwanted Starving Immigrantsï ? ? €
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