Following what many now call the Biden-Harris border crisis, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reported nearly three million unauthorized-migrant encounters in 2024 and 10.8 million since 2021, with the majority, 8.7 million, occurring along the Southwest border.[1] Crucially, these totals are those detected—leaving an unknown number of additional migrants uncounted. While about 45% of the unauthorized population are visa overstays, the remainder arrived illegally—most often smuggled through checkpoints or by trekking across desert terrain.[2] On paper, the story is blurry, but the land keeps the receipts—footpaths carved through fragile desert, vehicle ruts beyond established roads, and abandoned campsites polluting sensitive habitats. The illegal immigration has reshaped national parks and adjacent federal lands along the southern border. Thus, the need to protect these places becomes apparent with the solution hinging on tighter, routine, resource-aware coordination between the National Park Service (NPS) and the U.S. Border Patrol (USBP).

For context, the agencies mentioned above sit in different cabinet families with missions that overlap on the ground. The NPS is a bureau within the Department of the Interior (DOI), alongside other bureaus such as BLM and USFWS. In addition to the sixty-three congressionally designated national parks, the NPS also manages nearly 400 other sites—historic parks, national monuments, recreation areas, and more—including the Boston National Historical Park, the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, and the Statue of Liberty National Monument in NYC, just to name a few.[3] By contrast, USBP is the uniformed arm of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which sits within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and is responsible for securing the border between all ports of entry.[4] As CBP’s jurisdiction extends to 100 air miles from all points of our national border, many parks and other federal lands fall inside USBP’s operational area.[5] Effective management therefore requires formal coordination so USBP can execute border security while NPS fulfills its statutory duty to preserve the land.

For decades, federal land managers have warned that unauthorized crossings do not skirt public lands—they run through them. Long before today’s surge, the Public Lands Foundation documented hundreds of illegal roads and footpaths, abandoned vehicles, wildfire ignitions, and clusters of garbage that unauthorized migrants left across millions of BLM and park-adjacent acres in Arizona’s border zone.[6] “Soiled baby diapers, empty food containers and water bottles, clothes, human waste and other personal items are just a few of the things left [behind],” polluting the already scarce water sources that the desert ecosystem greatly depends on.[7] A San Diego State University study of the Cleveland National Forest in eastern San Diego County, California, found that for every 1,000 unauthorized immigrants crossing a given patch of wilderness, an average of 772 meters of new trail were created; 656 square meters of ground were disturbed; fifty kilograms of litter were left behind; eleven illegal campfires were ignited; and 1.7 hectares of land were burned in wildfires attributed to such crossings.[8] Federal agencies saw the same on wildlife refuges. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service reported that over 100,000 illegal border crossers were arrested on national wildlife refuges in 2005 and more than 167,000 pounds of marijuana were seized there that year—figures that, again, capture only detected activity.[9] Today, as these pressures have only intensified, the National Park Service has issued explicit warnings for parks prone to such activity, noting how illegal immigration often coincides with other unlawful and dangerous practices. For example, Coronado National Memorial warns visitors that undocumented crossings and smuggling are common and includes numerous warnings as to what activities parkgoers should avoid doing, such as hiking alone, hiking down “well-used but unofficial ‘trails,’” and steering clear of areas with “heavy border activity.”[10]

As the issue of illegal immigration continues to grow, Congress has not been blind to the role federal lands will inevitably play in a possible solution. In November 2023, the House Natural Resources Committee condemned proposals to use National Park Service sites as migrant encampments[11] and advanced legislation to prohibit housing migrants on national parks and other federal lands, citing conflicts with conservation mandates.[12] At the same time, upstream conditions underscore the environmental stakes. The Darién Gap, a roadless expanse of rainforest and swamp between Colombia and Panama, saw roughly half a million crossings in 2023 as migrants headed north to the U.S. Mexico border. The event left 2,500 tons of trash and a cleanup bill in the tens of millions in addition to irreversible biodiversity losses that no amount of money can restore.[13] Recognizing the growing friction between resource protection and border enforcement, the DOI has now called for interagency approaches that safeguard both missions on and adjacent to park lands.[14]

A step in the right direction, albeit far from the border, came on August 20, 2025, when DOI Secretary Doug Burgum announced a service-wide deputization of CBP officers to work alongside the NPS’s U.S. Park Police at NPS sites in Washington, D.C.[15] The move formalized cross-agency authority and joint patrols on NPS property, clarifying roles, tightening communications, and reducing operational gray zones.[16] While the D.C. deployment targeted local public-safety needs rather than border migration, the mechanism—targeted cross-deputization and coordinated operations on NPS lands—is a scalable template for border-adjacent parks where conservation and interdiction missions routinely intersect.

The remedy is not to force a choice between conservation and enforcement, but to make them work together where the land is most vulnerable, and where crossings are currently the least enforceable. While most proposed solutions turn a blind eye to one end of the argument or the other—such as environmentalists opposing a border wall outright or proposals to warehouse migrants in remote, ecologically irreplaceable habitats while they await due process—the durable path is coordinated, resource-aware enforcement.[17] Put simply, border-adjacent parks need to adapt the D.C.-style playbook to their desert realities: standing NPS–USBP operating plans; targeted cross-deputization between USBP agents and NPS park rangers; NEPA-aware pursuit and access protocols that minimize off-road damage; and rapid restoration of any affected land after incidents do occur. Only then might we be able to secure the border without sacrificing the landscape that defines it.

[1] Startling Stats Factsheet: Fiscal Year 2024 Ends With Nearly 3 Million Inadmissible Encounters, 10.8 Million Total Encounters Since FY2021, Homeland Security Republicans (Oct. 24, 2024), https://homeland.house.gov/2024/10/24/startling-stats-factsheet-fiscal-year-2024-ends-with-nearly-3-million-inadmissible-encounters-10-8-million-total-encounters-since-fy2021/.

[2] Modes of Entry for the Unauthorized Migrant Population, Pew Research Center (May 22, 2006), https://www.pewresearch.org/race-and-ethnicity/2006/05/22/modes-of-entry-for-the-unauthorized-migrant-population/.

[3] About Us: National Park System National Park Service, https://www.nps.gov/aboutus/national-park-system.htm (last visited Sep. 25, 2025).

[4] 8 C.F.R. § 287.1 (2025).

[5] Id.

[6] Public Land Being Destroyed by Illegal Immigration, Public Lands Foundation (July 18, 2010), https://www.publicland.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/PLF_Position_Statement_2010-08__Public_Lands_Being_Destroyed_by_Illegal_Immigration.pdf.

[7] Id.

[8] David L. McIntyre & John R. Weeks, Environmental Impacts of Illegal Immigration on the Cleveland National Forest in California, 54 Professional Geographer 392 (2002).

[9] Mitch Ellis, The Impacts of Illegal Immigration on Public Lands, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (June 15, 2006), https://www.fws.gov/testimony/impacts-illegal-immigration-public-lands.

[10] Coronado National Memorial Arizona: Safety, National Park Service (Jan. 22, 2024), https://www.nps.gov/coro/planyourvisit/safety.htm.

[11] Press Release, Committee Press Office, Committee Condemns Migrant Camps in National Parks (Sep. 27, 2023).

[12] Press Release, House Committee on Natural Resources, House Passes Legislation Preventing Biden Administration from Housing Migrants in National Parks (Nov. 30, 2023).

[13] Megan Janetsky & Matias Delacroix, Few Migrants Remain in the Darien Gap, But an Environmental Crisis Has Been Left Behind. AP (May 5, 2025), https://apnews.com/article/darien-gap-environment-pollution-trash-migration-crisis-1b117a9f73db9ad36f0d6e7664e5d631.

[14] Michael T. Reynolds, National Parks and Border Security: Securing Our Border, Saving Our National Parks, U.S. Dep’t of the Interior (Oct. 18, 2023), https://www.doi.gov/ocl/national-parks-and-border-security.

[15] Rachel Frazin,  Interior Deputizes Border Agents to National Park Sites Amid DC Takeover, The Hill. (Aug. 20, 2025), https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/5462417-border-patrol-nps-national-parks-trump-dc-takeover-burgum/#:~:text=This%20includes%20both%20tourist%2Dheavy,Creek%20and%20Meridian%20Hill%20parks.

[16] Id.

[17] Friends of the Everglades, Inc. v. Noem, 796 F. Supp. 3d 1234 (S.D. Fla. 2025).

[1] Startling Stats Factsheet: Fiscal Year 2024 Ends With Nearly 3 Million Inadmissible Encounters, 10.8 Million Total Encounters Since FY2021, Homeland Security Republicans (Oct. 24, 2024), https://homeland.house.gov/2024/10/24/startling-stats-factsheet-fiscal-year-2024-ends-with-nearly-3-million-inadmissible-encounters-10-8-million-total-encounters-since-fy2021/.

[1] Modes of Entry for the Unauthorized Migrant Population, Pew Research Center (May 22, 2006), https://www.pewresearch.org/race-and-ethnicity/2006/05/22/modes-of-entry-for-the-unauthorized-migrant-population/.

[1] About Us: National Park System National Park Service, https://www.nps.gov/aboutus/national-park-system.htm (last visited Sep. 25, 2025).

[1] 8 C.F.R. § 287.1 (2025).

[1] Id.

[1] Public Land Being Destroyed by Illegal Immigration, Public Lands Foundation (July 18, 2010), https://www.publicland.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/PLF_Position_Statement_2010-08__Public_Lands_Being_Destroyed_by_Illegal_Immigration.pdf.

[1] Id.

[1] David L. McIntyre & John R. Weeks, Environmental Impacts of Illegal Immigration on the Cleveland National Forest in California, 54 Professional Geographer 392 (2002).

[1] Mitch Ellis, The Impacts of Illegal Immigration on Public Lands, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (June 15, 2006), https://www.fws.gov/testimony/impacts-illegal-immigration-public-lands.

[1] Coronado National Memorial Arizona: Safety, National Park Service (Jan. 22, 2024), https://www.nps.gov/coro/planyourvisit/safety.htm.

[1] Press Release, Committee Press Office, Committee Condemns Migrant Camps in National Parks (Sep. 27, 2023).

[1] Press Release, House Committee on Natural Resources, House Passes Legislation Preventing Biden Administration from Housing Migrants in National Parks (Nov. 30, 2023).

[1] Megan Janetsky & Matias Delacroix, Few Migrants Remain in the Darien Gap, But an Environmental Crisis Has Been Left Behind. AP (May 5, 2025), https://apnews.com/article/darien-gap-environment-pollution-trash-migration-crisis-1b117a9f73db9ad36f0d6e7664e5d631.

[1] Michael T. Reynolds, National Parks and Border Security: Securing Our Border, Saving Our National Parks, U.S. Dep’t of the Interior (Oct. 18, 2023), https://www.doi.gov/ocl/national-parks-and-border-security.

[1] Rachel Frazin,  Interior Deputizes Border Agents to National Park Sites Amid DC Takeover, The Hill. (Aug. 20, 2025), https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/5462417-border-patrol-nps-national-parks-trump-dc-takeover-burgum/#:~:text=This%20includes%20both%20tourist%2Dheavy,Creek%20and%20Meridian%20Hill%20parks.

[1] Id.

[1] Friends of the Everglades, Inc. v. Noem, 796 F. Supp. 3d 1234 (S.D. Fla. 2025).