Abby Tomasek and Alex Houston
* Total border is 1,954 miles
long
* Rio Grande makes up about
1,240 miles of the border
• Second-longest river in US
• Longest river in Texas
• About three-fourths of flow
below El Paso comes from
Mexican side
* Listed on the Most Threatened
Rivers list by the American Rivers
Group four times
* Challenges
• Water Stress
- Dependency
- Increasing Demand
• Socio-economic factors
- High level of poverty
- Lacking education, health care, and
jobs
• Public Safety Concerns
- Illegal border crossings
- Drug trafficking
* Citrus Fruits
* Sugarcane
* Corn
* Sorghum
* Cotton
* Vegetables
* Cattle
* Livestock
* Pilots who fly along the Rio Grande say amount of smuggling has
not declined and predict increased violence on US soil
* 47% of the drugs seized in the US within 150 miles of the USMexico Border between 2004-2006 were in Texas
* Falfurrias, Texas is the heaviest area of alien and narcotic traffic
• First two weeks of October in 2011, 5.5 tons of marijuana that
•
was worth an estimated $10 million was seized
Confiscated in 2011
- 300,000 pounds of marijuana
- 2,000 pounds of cocaine
* 1.2 million illegal immigrants were apprehended by the
Border Patrol in 2005
* Estimated that Border Patrol catches 1 out of every 4
illegal border crossers
* Per-capita income differential
• US– over $30,000
• Mexico– less than $4,000
* Del Rio Sector– 205 miles of the Rio Grande
• 26.2% of the Texas and New Mexico illegal alien traffic
• 92.8% of the apprehended illegal border crossers possessed
Mexican citizenship
* Temporary relief to pressure on the border
• 6,000 National Guard troops
• 2 new surveillance aircrafts
• Five helicopters
* Proposed wall includes a double set of steel walls
* 10-foot prison chain link fence topped by razor wire would
cost $851 million
* Engineers have determined to set the wall back by as much as
two miles north of the river
• Homes, agricultural fields and churches would be affected
• Some Americans’ homes would be behind the wall
* Short and long-term impacts include changes in
• Riparian vegetation
• Channel morphology
• Floodplain function
* Separates residents from their only source of water
* 36 laws were waived to build the border wall in 2008
• Clean Water Act
• Safe Drinking Water Act
* Tigua Nation
• Holds ceremonies in the Rio Grande near El Paso for 300 years
• Stripped the tribe of its protections by waiving the American Indian
Religious Freedom Act
* The US-Canada border is 5,525
miles long, one of the longest
boundaries in the world
• 3,145 miles of land border
• 2,380 miles of water border
* Unique in that some US land
surrounded by Canadian border
* Water borders unclearly defined
making accidental border crossing
easy
* Report released concluded that only 32 miles of the
border was under operational control
* Recent crackdown of fishing across border without
notifying customs
* Reports of immigrants
entering US from Canada
* Conversely, there are also
reports of immigrants
entering Canada via the US
* Border security an issue for
both countries
* The Yalu and Tumen River form
the entire length of the North
Korea-China border
* The Yalu River is 491 miles long
and is swift, deep, and broad
* The Tumen River is 324 miles
long
• Shallow and narrow
• Preferred route for crossing into
China
* North Korean guards patrol the
length of the rivers
* Migrants are vulnerable to abuse
* Most people crossing the border
are women
• Many end up sold by trafficking
gangs
• End up in forced marriages
* Migrants caught repeatedly
crossing the border, stay a
prolonged period, or have
contact with South Koreans
liable to severe punishment or
death
* North Koreans attempt to reach South Korea or third world
countries in area via the “underground railroad”
• Two main routes
- Over the Mongolian border
- Through Burma or Laos, over the Mekong, and ending in Thailand
* China does not consider North Koreans refugees, instead
classifying them as illegal economic migrants
* Estimated number of North Koreans currently living in China
ranges from 10,000 to 300,000
* China states that its main obligation in dealing with North
Koran migrants originates from a 1986 agreement
* If a North Korean makes it to South Korea, they are
considered a citizen
* How do you think the US and Mexico can work together to
control immigration while still preserving the
environmentally and socially important areas surrounding the
Rio Grande River?
* We have talked a lot in class about cooperation between
countries regarding water resource issues, and immigration
conflicts can threaten working relationships. Should these
issues be considered by global partners when discussing
water resources, or should immigration issues be a national
issue?
* How should water boundaries be treated differently than
land boundaries?