Washington » Interior Secretary Ken Salazar will tour the U.S.-Mexico border Saturday at a national monument that has been deemed so dangerous more than half is closed to the public.
Salazar will spend nearly two hours at the border of Arizona's Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument after chatting with employees at the Kris Eggle Visitor Center, which is named after a park ranger who was killed by drug runners in 2002.
Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, has argued for public land agencies and Homeland Security to do more to secure the vast stretches of border abutting federally controlled areas. He also has raised concerns about conflicts between Interior officials and border agents.
On his trip, Salazar will get to see the cactus-dotted desert landscape where drug cartels and human traffickers have funneled their trades as more urban areas see an increased law enforcement presence.
"Secretary Salazar wants to see the area firsthand," Salazar spokeswoman Kendra Barkoff said, "touch base with employees and get updates on our collaborative efforts with DHS to strengthen border security and protect the natural resources in the area."
Bishop, who took a tour of a nearby area in early January, says he will be watching to see what Salazar does and says while he's on the border.
The Utah Republican said in a floor speech this week that he wants Salazar to end what he says are Interior requirements that border patrols negotiate access to public lands and seek permission to enforce the law. Bishop also urges Interior to allow DHS to place surveillance towers and end the practice of "extorting mitigation" funds from DHS for intrusions into protected areas.
"To secure our borders, we must do so to stop the evils of drug traffic, human trafficking and potential terrorism," Bishop said. "Common sense tells us that should be our goal; common sense tells us we should agree to that particular goal.
DHS and the Interior and Agriculture departments signed an agreement in 2006 that allows border agents to access sensitive public lands in pursuit of immigrants or criminal suspects, but Bishop contends that those patrols still are being hampered.
Robert Eggle, whose son was killed on U.S. soil, will accompany Salazar on the trip and said Friday that he hopes to encourage the secretary to take a deeper look at the problems along public lands on the border and to staff up the area to tackle the influx of crossers.
Eggle says even eight years after his son's murder, there hasn't been enough done to halt the drug cartels that are increasingly controlling part of the national monument, and he's still sore that federal officials didn't see his son's death as a catalyst to take major action there.
"I personally am outraged," Robert Eggle said, "that there was no outrage expressed by any level of government, be it Congress or the president or the secretary of state, never any expression of outrage that an American, a federal law enforcement officer well inside the U.S. could be killed by spillover Mexican violence."
Monument Superintendent Lee Baiza says he looks forward to showing Salazar and Park Service Director Jon Jarvis the projects his employees and those of Homeland Security have collaborated on and engaging in discussions about the "future challenges along the border."
