Dan Stein: Illegal Immigration is changing the environment as we know it

The migration of hundreds of thousands of people through Central America to the United States is changing the environment before our very eyes. And it is only getting worse. The Darien Gap, a once remote patch of rainforest straddling the border Panama and Colombia, is reeling from the damage caused by hundreds of thousands of migrants hiking through it on their way to our southern border. The number of migrants traversing the Darien Gap has increased dramatically in the past three years. In 2020, the Panamanian government estimated that 6,000 migrants traversed it. In 2021, those numbers grew to 133,000.  In 2022, the number was over 250,000 and in 2023, over 500,000 migrants traversed the Darien Gap, destroying its delicate ecosystem and threatening the region's rare animals. The effect illegal immigration has on our environment is often overlooked but illegal migration is literally changing the world as we know it, with irreversible dire consequences.

In addition to threatening animals on the edge of extinction, mass illegal migration puts pressure on our nation's already finite natural resources. It contributes to urban sprawl which consumes the United States landscape while sharply increasing housing prices. And with many migrants coming in all at once, it burdens the U.S power grid and increases our carbon footprint and pollution levels. And let's not forget the pollutants generated by migrant camps from toxic human waste and litter that infiltrates our country's rivers and streams. The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) seeks solutions that reduce the negative impact of uncontrolled immigration on our environment.