Photo: Center for Biological Diversity
By now, anyone paying attention to what’s happening on the border has heard of the Scott Warren trials -- the No More Deaths humanitarian volunteer arrested for providing food and water to asylum seekers crossing the border. It’s been over a decade, but I remember defending a coworker against near identical charges like it was just days ago. In 2008, federal officials charged and convicted Dan Millis, the head of the Sierra Club’s Borderlands campaign and former No More Deaths volunteer, for leaving water on trails in the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge for people crossing the border in search of a safer life for their families.
I wrote a letter defending Dan and asking a federal judge to rid these charges aimed at punishing a good person -- exactly what’s being done to Scott now. I highlighted the advocacy Dan’s done for people and the environment in the borderlands -- which now totals more than 14 years. Thankfully, a court of appeals overturned the “case” back then, but Donald Trump’s “zero tolerance” border policies are inflating local fears about what his administration will do next.
And so, we must recognize the hypocrisy in Trump’s soundbites about trade, the environment, and immigration. In fact, they are reason to be outraged. While the Trump administration vehemently denies climate change, guts Central American foreign aid, and punishes migrants in ways that openly violate human rights, one thing has been made blindingly clearer: Climate change and migration have become an all-too recognizable pattern, and they’re inextricably linked. Over the years, it’s become near impossible to separate the root causes of human and environmental injustices, especially as they relate to our southern border. In fact, these migrants are most often people legally seeking asylum to escape dangerous situations at home.
Just yesterday, a columnist took a look at what’s actually happening:
“Climate change and immigration have become more linked than ever. As of the end of May in fiscal year 2019, almost 150,000 migrants from Guatemala traveling with family members had been apprehended at our southwest border. That represents roughly 1% of the country’s total population. While there are a number of reasons driving this migration, including violence, poverty, and corruption, researchers now believe that climate change represents a significant underlying factor. In Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua, 2.2 million people have lost their crops due to excessive rain and drought, according to the World Food Programme. These are also some of the world’s most susceptible countries to drought.
The facts are stacked against Trump’s anti-immigrant, climate-denying, and dangerous nationalist agenda. The veil has been pulled off of the United State’s carbon emissions and cuts to international development aid and how they are playing an increasingly large role in people’s displacement -- especially people in Central American countries who are most susceptible to the damages of climate change.
This makes it even more painful waking up daily to comments -- Twitter tirades and apocalyptic speeches -- where the president spews soundbites about imposing tariffs, violating human rights on the border, and stopping at nothing to erect his boondoggle of a wall. Even today, on World Refugee Day, the Trump administration is sitting in federal court attempting to appeal a preliminary injunction granted to border rights groups stopping the unconstitutional use of military funds for useless, destructive border walls.
Photo by Sierra Club volunteer
We cannot sit idly by and accept the rhetoric coming from Trump and his cruel administration. We cannot ignore the future we’ll face one way or the other. We cannot afford to live in a world where the United States emits climate pollution at an unchecked rates. If this administration refuses to address climate change, we’ll only exacerbate its disruption and disasters in countries south of the border.
That’s why we’re fighting -- on the ground, at the Capitol, and in the courts -- to defend these people and these places. The fight for healthy and safe environments cannot be separated from a broader, critical goal of human rights and environmental justice.