A Borderline between Mexico and the United States represents the separation between one nation’s sovereignty and another’s, between which there are procedures that must be completed before a citizen of one can enter into the other. Illegal immigrants have caused extinction by creating dirt roads through wildlife habitats as well as creating ground pollution. In regards to air pollution, NAFTA brought diesel trucks between the U.S. and Mexico causing higher air pollution rates since before 1994. United States Environmental Protection Agency has gotten involved in cleaning air pollution and breeding endangered species. Individual efforts have also been made to track the air pollution around Mexico City.

Found south of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, the Mexican-American border is a current event hotspot. Reportedly thirteen million people live in the border area, nineteen percent of which are living under the poverty line; six percent above the national average of thirteen. Heated debate over border-crossing started with the construction of a Border Fence in 1994 that are enforced by the National Guard, under surveillance by Infrared Cameras, tracking devices, ground sensors, helicopters, and towers equipped with night-vision telescopes. Until then simple immigration practices were in use. Cutting off the immigration flow from Mexico into the U.S. has been costly to natural habitats of the border region. This project for a border fence was put into place by the Immigration and Naturalization Services, (INS). A fifteen-foot wall was erected to seal illegal immigrants in Mexico due to the high rate of cross-over. This border has only five paved roads leading in and out of it, so immigrants will often drive over desert sand to cross the border at night. This destroys natural habitats causing wildlife extinction and ground pollution. In addition to wildlife extinction, air pollution around the border has increased dramatically since 1994. In 1994 the North American Free Trade Agreement was signed, allowing tax-free commerce and trade between all of North America. Traffic at the Mexico border increased as a result. According to Tyler Miller, editor of the text, Living in the Environment: Principles, Connections and Solutions, “Air pollution is the presence of chemicals in the atmosphere in concentrations high enough to affect climate and harm organisms and materials. The effects of airborne pollutants range from annoying to lethal.” Trade between the U.S. and Mexico led to more diesel trucks polluting the air with carbon oxides and sulfur oxides in this area. Both of these environmental concerns have been identified and are being addressed. Individual efforts and governmental efforts are being made to restore wildlife populations as well as reduce smog. Thus far no businesses have joined the effort to solve these environmental crises. Increased travel between the Mexican-American Border paired with high sulfuric levels in diesel and gasoline, poor Industry compliance and “border-runners” burning highly polluting materials such as tires for warmth have caused a great deal of air pollution that the EPA is addressing while local and State wildlife services are addressing the endangering and extinction of several exclusive species as a result of habitat destruction as the proposed border fence is being built and as the “border-runners” continue to pollute the grounds that they pass through to get to the United States.

As defined, air pollution is the presence of chemicals that affect the climate and could potentially damage wildlife and the environment. While many types of air pollution are natural such as forest fires and dust blowing in the wind from eroded land, mankind has created a few detrimental sources of air pollution, two of which are found very often along the Mexican-American border: the burning of fossil fuel by automobiles and the burning of rubbers or plastics. These are detrimental to the environment not only along the border of Mexico and the United States, but widespread across southern California, Arizona, New Mexico, western Texas and Mexico City. As these substances are burned, CO2 and SO2 are released into the troposphere creating smog. This makes air unhealthy to breath and it also pollutes the rain as it falls from clouds, acid rain being an instance of this.

Efforts in the U.S. to counteract this pollution were included in the Clean Air Act of 1970, 1977, and 1990. These Acts set limits on the amount primary and secondary standards of pollution: first for human health and secondly for the well being of the environment. Between 1970 and 2002, a forty-eight percent decrease in the release of the major pollutant types: lead, carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds, suspended particulate matter (both under ten microns and under 2.5 microns), sulfur dioxide, and Nitrogen Oxide while only a few toxic chemicals have increased in our atmosphere marginally. An initiative called Border 2012 is a bi-national, ten year long environmental program designed to address pollutions around the border area. According to the United States’ EPA’s website, over the past five years efforts have been made in conjunction with the Mexican government to cut the levels of sulfur in gasoline and diesel; these being the two fuels used by trucks that travel across the Mexican-American border. Currently, “all diesel trucks are now being retrofitted with diesel oxidation catalysts or particulate filters. The retrofitted trucks used in combination with ultra-low sulfur diesel fuel will substantially reduce pollution from heavy-duty trucks based in the Tijuana area”. Retrofitting diesel trucks with filters has reduced fuel emissions here in the United States so this step will definitely work in Mexico. Another area of concern is industry compliance especially in regard to enforcing emission standards for industrial trucks. Often there is a light-weight fine associated with this violation: no point violation and no citation against the company that would be quantifiably kept a record of in order to know which companies are repeat offenders of this law. To combat this lack of enforcement, the EPA is providing $200,000 to test emissions from trucks near Nogales, Arizona,. In Japan a comparable situation occurred due to the number of automobiles being used per square mile. Japan put legislation called the Air Pollution Control Law into action in 1968 to reduce air pollution in their country,. This law provides the same premises as the American Clean Air Act: it sets standard levels of permissible particulate matter and other air pollutants. In the words of Biologist Roberto Muñoz Cruz who is the Sub-director of Information and Analysis at Mexico City’s atmospheric monitoring system stated, “No one really knows, or understands, the relationship between environmental contaminants and the health of inhabitants” in regard to air pollution. As part of the Secretaria del Medio Ambiente, the Atmospheric Monitoring System