From 2002-2005 alone more than 250,000 pounds of trash was picked up in Southern Arizona. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management estimates that there is more than 25 million pounds of trash left out there by illegal aliens crossing the southern border. The estimates are too low though because they don't include certain areas of the border or trash left by illegal aliens who weren't caught.
The costs for picking up all of this trash? An estimates $62.9 million over 5 years. That is just for the current trash of course. As more gets left behind you can increase that bill.
I'm wondering where the environmentalists who opposed the border fence along Otay-Mesa in San Diego are. Shouldn't they be appalled and protesting this with vigor?
Arizona Star
It's even started turning up in smaller amounts in hiking areas closer to Tucson, such as Josephine Saddle in the Santa Rita Mountains on the route to Mount Wrightson, says the Southern Arizona Hiking Club.
"In the Huachucas, you are almost wading through empty gallon water jugs," said Steve Singkofer, the Hiking Club's president. "There's literally thousands of water jugs, clothes, shoes. You could send 1,000 people out there and they could each pick up a dozen water jugs, and they couldn't get it all."
...
Most of the garbage is left at areas where entrants wait to be picked up by smugglers. The accumulation of disintegrating toilet paper, human feces and rotting food is a health and safety issue for residents of these areas and visitors to public lands, a new BLM report says.
...
The trash also isn't good for wildlife, said Arizona Game and Fish spokesman Dana Yost. Birds and mammals can get tangled up in it or eat it, causing digestive problems, Yost said. It's not at all uncommon to find the trash in bears' stomachs, he said. Plastic bags, foil wrappers and certain foods are all problems.
It is constantly brought up by those in favor of illegal aliens that a border fence or enforcing immigration laws would be too costly for this country, but with the continued costs of illegal aliens being reported if you added it all up it would easily cover the costs of stopping this continued invasion of our country. From educational costs to social service costs to health care costs to uninsured motorist costs you can now add this trash cleanup cost. All on the backs of the US taxpayer.
