Illegal immigrants leave tons of trash in Arizona, devastating environment


By Caroline May - The Daily Caller 12:47 AM 07/29/2010

In 1971, the environmental organization Keep America Beautiful launched a Public Service Announcement featuring a crying Indian lamenting the litter that supposedly coated America’s landscape. If in the 1970s the crying Indian was tearing up over some Coke cans on the bank of a river, today he would be sobbing at the environmental devastation occurring on the U.S.-Mexico border due to illegal immigration.

The Arizona Bureau of Land Management (BML) reports that in 2009 alone environmental groups collected over 234 tons of trash, 800 tires, 404 bicycles, and 62 vehicles left behind by illegals crossing the border. Special assistant for the Arizona BLM, Kathy Pedrick, told The Daily Caller that last year the agency spent over one million dollars of federal money just clearing the mess along the border.

Pedrick’s colleague, deputy state director for communications, Deborah E. Stevens, told TheDC that the clean up crews are outnumbered. “The impact of the environmental pollution far exceeds the amount of clean up,â€