I've been covering the border for nearly 20 years and what I have seen saddens me.
Border Patrol and National Guard are doing what they are told by Washington - but what they do is create more roads, which in reality makes it easier for smugglers. It isn't done on purpose, but that is the reality. Border Patrol agents, ranchers and smugglers have told me this.
As migrants are pushed out into the boonies, pristine desert is being horribly trashed. I've seen lay-in spots that look like a small town's dump. It is horrible and sad.
I've ridden horses around the sky islands with Mr. Glenn, the rancher who photographed the jaguar Chuck mentioned near Douglas. As Chuck said, the human intrusion of the military, increased border patrol, smugglers, migrants, national guard, fences is going to devastate the areas, and it is going to continue, and unfortunately it is going to get worse.
When I first started photographing around the border, the migrants were truly migrants - they'd come, work, go home, and repeat the cycle every so often. Now, more women and children are crossing because people are coming to stay - it is too hard to cross. To me, this makes "illegal immigration" a bigger problem. It is forcing whole families to move here where before just a few family members came for a short period of time (obviously some came to stay, but most that I've talked to over the years want to go home, but now they can't)
It is the ultimate Catch-22 for government agencies, migrants and the environment.
There has to be a mechanism for people to come over legally and work. Obviously there is a need, and obviously they will come at whatever expense. Walls don't work (I've seen homemade ladders on rope thrown over, letting people cross, then pulled back within days of the landing mat going up).
Rant over. I don't envy the politicians who try to solve this - there is no easy solution. Neither the political left or right have the answers, nor does Mexico.