A Gift to the Drug Cartels: Will New Mexico Become the Next Arizona?

Opposition to S. 1689, Senator Bingaman's wilderness bill, has gone national. One study and one commentary were released last week to a national audience. The Center for Immigration Studies issued A Gift to the Drug Cartels: Will New Mexico Become the Next Arizona? and a nationally ranked blog posted the lengthy report New Mexico Wilderness Bill – Another Disastrous Federal Land Grab.

Here is the CIS press release:

WASHINGTON, Oct. 21 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A new Center for Immigration Studies Memorandum explores how seemingly innocuous legislation before the Senate could turn 25 miles of southeast New Mexico's Dona Ana County into a staging ground for drug cartels and illegal alien smugglers.

S. 1689, the "Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks Wilderness Act," changes the currently designated "public use" of certain Department of Interior lands to a "wilderness" designation. The end result would be to severely curtail the Border Patrol's ability to operate due to the stringent nature of wilderness laws. New Mexico could suffer the same results as Arizona, as documented by the Center in its mini-documentary series (http://cis.org/HiddenCamerasSeries) showing the waste, destruction, and unsafe circumstances that borderlands suffer when wilderness laws (and poor federal government policy) create a law enforcement vacuum.

The new Center for Immigration Studies Memorandum, "A Gift to the Drug Cartels: Will New Mexico Become the Next Arizona?" (http://cis.org/new-mexico-cartel-gift), authored by Janice Kephart, Director of National Security Policy at the Center and producer of the "Hidden Cameras" mini-documentary series, leaves no doubt that bill's goal is to support legitimate environmental conservation. However, through an in-depth examination of current law and policy, Kephart concludes that the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks Wilderness Act would leave the Border Patrol with little ability, and little incentive, to do its job. The measure would effectively hand drug cartels 25 more borderland miles for operations; an alternative would be to assure conservation with adequate law enforcement in the area, thus keeping the cartels under control while protecting our public safety and national security.

The measure, co-sponsored by Senators Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy & Natural Resources, and Tom Udall (D-NM), was passed out of Chairman Bingaman's committee in July 2010 and is awaiting consideration on the Senate floor.

The Center for Immigration Studies is an independent non-partisan research institution that examines the impact of immigration on the United States and neither endorses nor opposes legislation.

The CIS study has received wide media coverage, such as:

Will New Mexico Become the Next Arizona? newsmax.com

Expert says change to federal land designation in New Mexico ‘a gift to the drug cartels’ U.S. Report

It's even reached New York City, as witness this letter published at Congress.org:

Subject:
S. 1689, the "Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks Wilderness Act,"

To:
Sen. Charles Schumer
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand

October 21, 2010

Senator Gilibrand / Senator Schumer,

Please vote against "S. 1689, the "Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks Wilderness Act," .
The measure would effectively hand drug cartels 25 more borderland miles for operations.

We already have large sections of our border with Mexico posted with signs that says "It's dangerous to travel in the area", we don't need additional areas of our country under FOREIGN CONTROL!

New York , NY

Gateway Pundit has been rated as one of the Top 100 blogs in the U.S. by Carnegie Mellon University and he has posted New Mexico Wilderness Bill – Another Disastrous Federal Land Grab. I'm pleased to report a fellow Las Crucen, Rachel Pulaski, played an important part in this national exposure.

Here are some excerpts:

The New Mexico Wilderness Bill, if enacted, will be disastrous for New Mexico and disastrous for America...

What does Federal Wilderness Designation mean? When land is designated as Federal Wilderness under the 1964 Wilderness Act, there are numerous prohibitions, such as:

* no permanent road within any Wilderness area
* no temporary road
* no use of motorized vehicles
* no motorized equipment of motorboats
* no landing of aircraft
* no form of mechanical transport
* no structure or installation

Of course these restrictions would not concern people that have no regard for U.S. laws. People like the drug cartels, drug smugglers, illegal aliens, human traffickers, etc. The DOI has submitted a 2002 report titled “Threat Assessment of Public Lands” that outlines the dangers that we face on a daily basis from illegal incursions on these lands. The report contains grim statistics. Video here...

Bingaman's bill is finally receiving the national attention and critique it deserves.