Trump Forces National Park Rangers to Patrol Mexican Border

Park rangers belong in our parks, serving visitors and protecting the public lands that belong to us all, not at the border.

The Trump administration is sending a new “surge” of rangers from US national parks such as Zion, Yosemite and the National Mall to patrol the southern border for crossings by illegal immigrants.

Continuing a controversial policy initiated in 2018, rangers who work in law enforcement will be dispatched to Organ Pipe Cactus national monument on the Arizona and Mexico border as well as Big Bend national park on the border in south-west Texas.

This is because even our garbage, Republican Senate hasn't funded his racist border efforts.

Trump has been unable to obtain funding for his border emergency plan, which includes an increase in immigration enforcement officials as well as large sums for border wall construction.  Diverting rangers from national parks is a way to direct federal resources to the border without the need for congressional approval.

“This new directive rotates rangers from places like the National Mall, Redwood Park and Yosemite,” said Laiken Jordahl, borderlands campaigner for the Center for Biological Diversity who previously worked for the NPS for two years, referring to national parks not located along the border. “They are essentially sending people down there that have no idea how to do the job.”

Besides being immoral, unethical, and potentially illegal, Trump and Stephen Miller's actions here cause other problems.

Since the fiscal year 2011, the National Park Service has seen an 11% reduction in staff while experiencing a 19% increase in visitation. Trump’s proposed 2020 budget, which includes considerable increases in border security spending, cuts the NPS budget cut by $481m.

Valerie Naylor, a former National Park Service (NPS) superintendent who worked for the agency for 31 years, said... “My concern is sending rangers from parks that are already understaffed specifically to work with border patrol in areas that are outside the mission of the National Park Service,” she said. “This potentially puts visitors at risk, certainly resources at risk, in the parks they are leaving.”

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/dec/03/trump-deploys-park-rangers-patrol-mexican-border