What considerations are being made regarding the border and homeland security?
The Tumacacori Highlands Wilderness proposal explicitly refers to Border Patrol’s own procedures, signed by Secretary Chertoff and authorized by the Department of Homeland Security in 2006, to ensure they can continue to aggressively pursue and capture illegal immigrants and drug smugglers in wilderness areas (see The Border and Wilderness). These procedures state: “Nothing in this MOU is intended to prevent CBP-BP agents from exercising existing exigent/emergency authorities to access lands, including authority to conduct motorized off-road pursuit of suspected CBVs [cross-border violators] at any time, including in areas designated or recommended as wilderness…” [Section IV, B, 4].
