According to the Center for Biological Diversity, 41 laws have been waived to construct a solid concrete and steel wall through Arizona’s Sonoran Desert. Through this land flows the U.S.’s last remaining undammed, free-flowing river, the San Pedro.
Currently, the markers of the border are vehicle barriers — 6-foot-tall steel structures through which water and wildlife can move, without a single thought that a so-called border exists.
It’s going to cost us a lot to create this impermeable divide. Trump’s “national emergency” declaration is diverting national funds to the construction of this wall. This interruption to the flow of federal defense money will also interrupt the flow of the river, and the whole ecosystem depending on it.