A recently published study (PDF), to be disseminated to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, reports that barriers built to keep out illegal immigrants are blocking black bears in Arizona from their relatives in Mexico. Border fences are choking off bear migration corridors that are already under stress from urban encroachment, according to the study authored by the Department of Agriculture’s Todd C. Atwood and Julie K. Young, and other biologists.

“While black bears are not a species of concern in [the] U.S., they are in Mexico, which represents the southern extent of their historic and current range,” the study reads, noting that border bears “may be particularly vulnerable to further loss of habitat due to urbanization and border security activities.”

The study focused on Arizona’s desert Sky Island mountain ranges, which are also home to mountain lions and jaguars and encompass one of the nation’s most biologically diverse regions.

Its findings come as the State of Arizona is soliciting private donations to build a wall in an attempt to secure the remaining 82 miles of the state’s 388-mile border with Mexico that isn’t fenced.

A mishmash of barriers currently cover about one-third of the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border with nearly half of them in Arizona and the rest equally split between California, New Mexico and Texas.

The U.S. Border Patrol first began erecting barriers in 1990 to deter illegal entries and drug smuggling in San Diego and, in 1996, Congress passed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, which bestowed what is now the Department of Homeland Security broad authority to construct fencing. Then in 2005, Congress passed the REAL ID Act, authorizing Homeland Security to waive all legal requirements to expedite the construction of border barriers. The Secure Fence Act of 2006 directed Homeland Security to build 850 more miles of border fencing, though that requirement was later modified to authorize fencing along not fewer than 700 miles.

Republican congressmen and women from Colorado have historically voted for federal fence-building while Democrats such as Mark Udall and Diana DeGette have opposed it and questioned the effectiveness of barriers, their cost, environmental impacts and diplomatic ramifications.

Border security doesn’t come cheap. The Government Accountability Office estimates (pdf) the federal government doled out between $400,000 to $4.8 million for every mile of border fencing it constructed and that another $6.5 billion is needed for its maintenance over the next 20 years.

Atwood, Young and the other biologists urge government officials and policymakers to identify opportunities to maintain and restore suitable wildlife habitat to protect borderland migrations.

“Currently, in the western U.S., there is opportunity to integrate connectivity conservation with land-planning. For example, land-use planners in the Tucson metropolitan area have developed a regional conservation plan with a specific focus on maintaining wildlife linkages and increasing the permeability of transportation corridors. The information we present here, if incorporated into land-use planning, may aid in ameliorating the adverse effects of inevitable urbanization and border security activities. If connectivity can be maintained, there is greater likelihood of the longterm persistence of species such as black bears, mountain lions, and jaguars along the U.S.-Mexico border.”

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (Photo: Flickr/World Economic Forum)

The tea party has added another item to its list of reasons to fear the United Nations: Some in the movement say the U.N. is planning to intervene in the United States’ upcoming elections.

This week, when Attorney General Eric Holder announced his speech on voting rights, the Texas group True the Vote called for a protest of the event because “Holder is for NAACP Plans to involve the United Nations in US Elections.” [Their emphasis.]

True the Vote, a voter integrity initiative launched by the Houston tea party group King Street Patriots, held a national summit this year featuring some of the right’s most incendiary speakers, such as Andrew Breitbart, The Texas Independent reported. According to the Independent, “representatives from more than 25 states attended the two-day national summit in Houston to receive training and information about the conservative organization’s efforts to combat voter fraud.”

The Independent reported back in March that the group was a 501(c)4 nonprofit and had applied for 501(c)3 nonprofit status.

Catherine Engelbrecht, the president of King Street Patriots, said during the group’s summit that she was hoping to mobilize teams of three people to oversee each voting precinct in the country. That would add up to roughly 1 million right-wing tea party volunteers nationwide by the 2012 general election, the Independent reported.

Tea Party Manatee, based in Southwest Florida, sent out an email newsletter this week, echoing the King Street Patriots’ latest fight and warning that the U.N. is “trying to Intervene in 2012 Elections.”

According to group’s email:

• In November 2012 Foreign bureaucrats will appear at your polling station to ensure you adhere to their vision of a ‘fair’ election.
• Local polling officials who dare to enforce state clean election laws will be subject to lawsuits and arrest.
• Conservative political speech will be deemed hateful and be suppressed.
• Just enough voter fraud will be allowed to ensure a second term for Barack Hussein Obama.

This is not a fantasy – next week it will start to become reality when a delegation of leftist Obama supporters will meet with the United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights in Geneva, Switzerland. And there they will lay the groundwork to ensure the United Nations takes action in time to save Barack Obama.

You see, the Democratic Left is terrified of the new clean election laws being passed across America. These laws have cleared our voter lists of the dead and the ineligible, require voter identification for everyone and insist that our military be allowed to vote.

And clean elections are the single greatest weapon we have to ensure an honest vote in 2012 and a single term for Barack Obama. And the Left can’t allow that to happen.

So they will make their case for action to the UN Human Rights Council – an international government origination so biased that even Hillary Clinton has denounced it.

Council members like Saudi Arabia, Cuba, Mexico and China will review your election laws and judge if you measure up to their idea of democracy. How can we accomplish any of our goals, like repealing health care rationing, securing the borders and balancing our budget if we can’t even control our own elections?

That’s why we need to send a clear message to the UN – stay out of America’s elections and abandon Barack Obama to the judgment of the American people. I need you to tell the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to send that very message to the United Nations – by any means necessary.

It’s difficult to trace the exact origin of this particular hysteria, but one of the earliest mentions of the NAACP’s plan to involve the U.N. came in a report by Fox News.

According to Fox:

The NAACP is calling on the United Nations to intervene as it claims state governments are colluding to “block the vote” for minority communities ahead of the 2012 election — a charge those governments vehemently deny.

The nation’s biggest civil rights organization this week released a report that claimed a raft of new voting laws at the state level would disenfranchise minority voters. The report said 14 states passed 25 measures “designed to restrict or limit the ballot access of voters of color.”

…

Supporters of the laws describe them as common-sense measures meant to ensure the integrity of elections. In Tennessee, which is implementing a new photo ID law, elections coordinator Mark Goins dismissed the criticism and questioned why the NAACP would flag the United Nations over its concerns, calling that effort “a bit extreme.”

“I don’t know what the benefit of going to the U.N. would be,” he said. “I can’t imagine any authority whatsoever that they would have here in Tennessee.”

But the NAACP described the new measures as part of a “concerted” effort to drive down minority turnout and is planning a multi-stage campaign to attract international attention.

To start, the group is planning a “Stand 4 Freedom” rally this Saturday across from the U.N. headquarters. Supporters are being asked to sign an online pledge which, among other demands, calls on the United Nations to “investigate and condemn voter suppression tactics in the United States.”

Copies of the latest report are being sent to the United Nations, as well as attorneys general across the country and the Department of Justice. According to one newspaper report, the NAACP will follow up in March when it sends a delegation to Geneva, Switzerland, to present its case before the U.N. Human Rights Council — a group known more for its sustained criticism of Israel than its attention to voting rights.

An NAACP spokesman says the organization is just doing its duty as one of the 3,500 groups that “has consulting status” with the U.N. The group simply works with the international organization to make sure the United States is “living up to its commitment” to an initiative to eliminate discrimination, the spokesperson says.

He also says that the U.N. does not have the power to actually intervene in state matters, and can only interview people and create reports through the Human Rights Council.

“We are just working to make sure the U.S. remains a beacon of democracy,” the NAACP spokesperson says.

The NAACP will be giving a presentation in Geneva to the Human Rights Council in March 2012 as part of its consulting status.

Meaning: extend the traveling distance into which Mexican nationals can penetrate New Mexico, so that they can bring their cash to cities like Las Cruces, Lordsburg, and Deming.

In response, Senators Tom Udall and Jeff Bingaman have proposed legislation — the Southern New Mexico Economic Development Act — asking for an extension of the 25-mile zone in which Mexican citizens can travel into New Mexico to shop, to conduct business, to visit family and friends to 75 miles.

“This bill means more business for companies in border communities,” said Dan Watson of Udall’s Washington D.C. office. “With more people coming in to shop and do friendly business, the better off they are.”

Currently, holders of the Border Crossing Card (also known as a Laser Card) can only venture 25 miles from the border into New Mexico, Texas and California. New Mexico has fewer towns within that range than California and Texas, which offer shoppers cities such as El Paso and San Diego. In 1999, Arizona extended the card’s range to 75 miles, which granted Mexican nationals access to Tucson. “New Mexico should have the same opportunity as Arizona to benefit from this added commerce,” said Watson.

Momentum for the extension has been gaining. This past September, New Mexico’s legislature passed a resolution asking the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to extend the zone.

“This bill extends that line further to boost our border economy in a manner that is consistent with our border security needs,” added Watson.

Meaning: extend the traveling distance into which Mexican nationals can penetrate New Mexico, so that they can bring their cash to cities like Las Cruces, Lordsburg, and Deming.

In response, Senators Tom Udall and Jeff Bingaman have proposed legislation — the Southern New Mexico Economic Development Act — asking for an extension of the 25-mile zone in which Mexican citizens can travel into New Mexico to shop, to conduct business, to visit family and friends to 75 miles.

“This bill means more business for companies in border communities,” said Dan Watson of Udall’s Washington D.C. office. “With more people coming in to shop and do friendly business, the better off they are.”

Currently, holders of the Border Crossing Card (also known as a Laser Card) can only venture 25 miles from the border into New Mexico, Texas and California. New Mexico has fewer towns within that range than California and Texas, which offer shoppers cities such as El Paso and San Diego. In 1999, Arizona extended the card’s range to 75 miles, which granted Mexican nationals access to Tucson. “New Mexico should have the same opportunity as Arizona to benefit from this added commerce,” said Watson.

Momentum for the extension has been gaining. This past September, New Mexico’s legislature passed a resolution asking the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to extend the zone.

“This bill extends that line further to boost our border economy in a manner that is consistent with our border security needs,” added Watson.

In the video a narrator asks, “Who supports Governor Perry’s decision to give in-state tuition to illegal immigrants?” Photos of President Barack Obama, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid enter the frame before the video centers on footage of Vicente Fox, former president of Mexico, praising the decision by Gov. Rick Perry and Texas lawmakers. The praise was offered by the Mexican official during a 2003 luncheon in Texas.

Perry’s controversial debate statement that those who do not agree with the state’s decision to offer tuition breaks to undocumented migrants to attend universities aren’t sympathetic enough also makes an appearance. “If you say that we should not educate children who have come into our state for no other reason than they’ve been brought there by no fault of their own, I don’t think you have a heart,” Perry said.

The final frames of the video provide Romney’s debate statement that the undocumented in Texas are being lifted above U.S. citizens because they are offered a better discount on an education in the state than those in other states.

A copy of the video is embedded below.

Under the agreements, embassies from these nations will work with regional offices of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Wage and Hour Division (WHD) to spread information regarding the minimum wage, overtime pay, child labor rules and other regulations. People from these nations residing in the United States will be able to report workplace abuses to their consulates. Solis also committed the WHD to enforcing labor regulations for immigrant workers in the hospitality, agricultural and other industries with large numbers of low-wage workers.

“This is basically about information,” says Migration Policy Institute (MPI) policy analyst Madeleine Sumption. Because the U.S. labor rights system is based on complaints, she says, migrant workers are faced with language barriers and a lack of knowledge of their rights under U.S. law.

But restrictionist organizations and conservative media have condemned Solis and the administration for signing the agreements, arguing that they benefit undocumented immigrants. The conservative Daily Caller questioned Solis about her intent to “protect illegal workers” at a breakfast event on Wednesday:

“I protect all workers here in this country,” [Solis] told The Daily Caller at a breakfast hosted by The Christian Science Monitor. “I have a vested interest in protecting all workers that work here in the U.S. Period.”

Critics of illegal immigration say Solis’ deals and statements show that she doesn’t value American workers more than foreign workers, and that she’s undercutting U.S. workers’ marketplace clout.

The article also quotes Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), and Mark Krikorian, president of the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), two of the most prominent restrictionist organizations in Washington. Stein accuses Solis of “pandering to a political ethnic bloc,” and Krikorian says that the administration is “ambivalent about American sovereignty … [and] distinguishing between Americans and foreigners,” and that seeking Hispanic votes is a “practical manifestation of this broader ambivalence.”

Phil Kent, a spokesman for Americans for Immigration Control, tells Fox News that, “Obviously everyone wants workers protected in the workplace, that’s not the issue … The problem is the bending over backwards to help and promote black market labor.”

However, it’s by no means definitive that enforcing labor rights for undocumented migrant workers promotes unauthorized immigration. Failing to promote and protect the same labor regulations for unauthorized immigrants could also undercut legal workers by making migrant workers effectively cheaper and easier to exploit by employers, a view that Sumption calls the “demand side” perspective of immigration enforcement. It stands in contrast to the “supply side” perspective, which she summarized as, “If you make life pleasant for the unauthorized than they will stay.”

“My suspicion is that the demand side will be more important,” Sumption says, pointing out that low-skill immigrant workers, having come a long way for a low-wage job, are probably willing to put up with a lot in terms of labor rights infringement.

A July MPI report (PDF), argues that, “The presence of vulnerable workers, including those without immigration status, influences labor standards compliance, as does the necessity of many businesses to cut cost,” and that, “labor standards abuses occur at high rates in certain industries that employ heavy concentrations of low-wage immigrant workers, including those without immigration status.” This suggests a connection between lax enforcement of labor rights and demand for unauthorized immigrants.

The report calls for increasing the number of federal government personnel devoted to labor rights enforcement, which decreased under the Bush administration and has reverted to 2001 levels under the Obama administration. Ultimately, the attention placed upon the signing ceremony by conservative publications may be unwarranted, as the agreements merely extend the role of the consulates in what is an already ongoing process by the Labor Department to increase its labor rights enforcement efforts.

“I wouldn’t describe it as radical,” Sumption says.

Mexican commandos have discreetly traveled to the United States, assembled at designated areas and dispatched helicopter missions back across the border aimed at suspected drug traffickers. The Drug Enforcement Administration provides logistical support on the American side of the border, officials said, arranging staging areas and sharing intelligence that helps guide Mexico’s decisions about targets and tactics.

Officials said these so-called boomerang operations were intended to evade the surveillance — and corrupting influences — of the criminal organizations that closely monitor the movements of security forces inside Mexico. And they said the efforts were meant to provide settings with tight security for American and Mexican law enforcement officers to collaborate in their pursuit of criminals who operate on both sides of the border.

The article suggests that the operations are rare, and it’s not clear where along the border the operations took place. The U.S. has sent drones far into Mexican territory to gather intelligence on suspected drug traffickers.

Five bills — passed in Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina and Utah — were omnibus laws inspired by Arizona’s 2010 immigration law. These laws share common qualities like a requirement that law enforcement check the legal status of people detained for traffic violations, as well as mandatory implementation by employers of the E-Verify system, which aims to verify worker identification. In addition to the states with Arizona-style omnibus laws, five other states passed bills requiring E-Verify.

Not all bills were enforcement-only measures, however. In addition to its Arizona-style legislation, Utah enacted legislation which would create a temporary guestworker program allowing undocumented immigrants to legally work in the state, a policy innovation which GOP state lawmakers disagree on and which the federal government has said it finds objectionable.

Two states, Connecticut and Maryland, passed bills allowing undocumented immigrants to qualify for in-state tuition. A total of twelve states have passed similar legislation in the past decade.

The number of state-level immigration bills introduced yearly has risen since 2005, and the range of issues covered by the bills has also expanded. The year 2007 holds the record for most immigration-related bills introduced in a single year. If past trends continue, 2011 looks to break that record.

Despite the increasing interest from state legislatures in immigration issues, undocumented immigration to the United States has substantially decreased in the past two years. Experts credit the stagnated U.S. labor market, improved economic conditions in Mexico (and other developing countries) and more effective border security for the decline in undocumented immigration.

From The Washington Post:

Mexico’s net outflow of migrants has fallen to “almost nothing,” as fewer migrants entered Mexico, but the number leaving dropped even faster, the government’s statistical unit said Monday.

A report by the National Statistics Institute says Mexico lost about 0.09 percent of its population to migration as reflected in quarterly surveys carried out between March 2010 and March 2011.

That was 83 percent lower than the outflow of 0.53 percent of the population in 2006 and early 2007, near the end of Mexico’s migration boom.

“In the first quarter of 2011, there was practically no net loss of population due to international migration,” the institute said. “As a result, in relative terms the net migration balance was almost nothing.”

About 0.38 percent of the country’s 112.7 million people migrated abroad in the most recent period studied, while about 0.29 percent immigrated to Mexico.

Newsweek reported more than a year ago that immigration from Mexico to the U.S. was falling fast due to changing demographics in Mexico as well as an economic situation in Mexico that was enabling more people to find work. The magazine predicted that it will not be long before the United States is crafting policies to increase immigration to the country.

Dee Dee Garcia Blase, executive director of Somos Republicans, a national organization representing Latino Republicans, told The Colorado Independent that the change has a lot to do with the relative economic strengths of Mexico and the U.S.

“The economic situation of both Mexico and the United States has much to do with Mexico’s outflow falling to ‘almost nothing,’” she said.

“According to Bloomberg, the Mexican economy expanded 5.5% in 2010 which was the most in 10 years, whereas, the 2010 GDP of the U.S. was at 2.8%. GDP growth for Mexico is expected to reach 4.5% for 2011.

“U.S. baby boomers are choosing to retire in Mexico because the cost of living is less and medication/health care is less expensive.

“The protectionist laws implemented by restrictionist GOP legislators are having a direct negative impact with much needed migration to support our agricultural industry and it goes against pro growth, pro small business ideas. Immigrants are the new taxpayers that will sustain the American economy and at some point we will be competing with Mexico for that population we will need.

“We need more immigrants as we go from 35 million baby boomers to approximately 70 million baby boomers in about 20 years. The aging population and their entitlements will exhaust all federal revenues in approximately 12 years if we do not legalize immigrants (the new taxpayers) and fix the broken immigration system that can help support our aging population and their entitlements they worked for,” she said by email Tuesday.

The rule requires gun dealers in Arizona, New Mexico, California and Texas to inform the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) if a person buys more than one semiautomatic rifle that accepts a detachable magazine and uses ammunition greater than .22 caliber within five days.

“These cartels — which are responsible for more than 40,000 deaths since 2006, including Americans like Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry — have various ways of obtaining weapons that don’t include lawful purchases from legitimate gun sellers,” he added.

Mexico has some of the strictest gun control laws in the world — the Washington Postreported on the one gun store in Mexico City on a military base that requires a thorough background check and only allows purchasers to buy one small-caliber weapon. According to the Post, 60,000 American guns have been recovered in Mexico from 2006 to 2010. Straw purchasers without a criminal record often buy from different stores in border states to evade detection.

“Instead of arbitrarily implementing this misguided and constitutionally questionable policy, the Obama administration should target actual criminals rather than law-abiding citizens and immediately secure our southern border against the northbound and southbound illegal smuggling of drugs, humans, cash, guns, fugitives and stolen vehicles,” added Perry.