Mike Lee is Still Trying To Steal Your Land
He calls it the Border Lands Conservation Act. It’s another con from the serial public lands swindler.
Last month, Senator Mike Lee of Utah, the snake in a flag-pin who’s made it his life’s work to sell off your lands, introduced the so-called Border Lands Conservation Act.
It sounds noble, doesn’t it? Like maybe it’s about protecting fragile desert ecosystems or improving habitat along our borders. Of course it isn’t. It’s about gutting one of the most important conservation laws in American history under the paper-thin guise of “security.”
The bill would amend the Wilderness Act, the gold standard of environmental protection, to let the Department of Homeland Security build roads, walls, fences, and “tactical infrastructure” inside designated wilderness areas within one hundred miles of both the northern and southern borders.
That includes Joshua Tree, Big Bend, Organ Pipe, Glacier, the Boundary Waters, and dozens of other iconic landscapes. In other words: the places Americans set aside to remain forever wild — the places the law says must remain untouched by roads, vehicles, or permanent structures — would become open territory for bulldozers, 4x4’s, and surveillance towers.
All because Mike Lee thinks he’s found a clever way to use immigration as a crowbar to pry open the Wilderness Act.
The Oldest Trick in his Tired Book
Lee says his bill is about stopping “environmental damage” caused by migrants — litter, cut fences, wildfires.
I’ll pause here so you can finish laughing.
Yes, that’s the Mike Lee, the same man who’s spent every waking minute of his sham of a career trying to steal your birthright, cravenly pretending to care about the environment. The same Mike Lee who’s never met a landscape he didn’t want to pave and privatize for someone else’s profit.
How he expects anyone to believe this lifelong saboteur of public lands has suddenly discovered his inner conservationist is truly beyond me. I think at this point it’s just a game to him: Can I sneak another attempt through? Ah, they caught me! I’ll try again in a month or two!
As for the border security argument, there are already provisions in the Wilderness Act for emergencies and cooperation between agencies when public safety is at stake. Nothing in current law prevents Border Patrol from responding to fires or saving lives.
But that’s not the point of this bill. The point is to give DHS permanent authority to do whatever it wants, namely to bulldoze, pave, surveil, and militarize wildlands without public consent, environmental review, or even coordination with the agencies that manage them.
Once that precedent exists, the “border zone” becomes an industrial corridor stretching two thousand miles across the American West — a permanent scar running through some of our most irreplaceable landscapes.
And it wouldn’t stop there. Because once you carve exceptions into the Wilderness Act, the lobbyists line up with new ones: energy, “critical minerals,” “forest health,” “fire prevention.” But then again that’s the whole point of this bill.
A Career Built on Sabotage
Oh no, I’m not done raking this serial public lands traitor over the coals.
Lee has truly spent his entire miserable political life trying to dismantle the very idea of public ownership. It’s what gets him up in the morning. He’s introduced numerous bills to sell off public lands outright. He’s tried to strip monuments, shrink protections, and turn over federal management to the states — knowing full well it ends with privatization. He’s spoken at length about his burning desire for your lands to be taken from you, a lot of it is public record.
Every session, every Congress, it’s the same obsession dressed in a different outfit.
This time it’s border security. Last time it was housing. Before that, it was “local control.” The language changes. The goal doesn’t.
He is, quite literally, the senator of the land barons. And this bill — this cynical, wilderness-destroying farce — is just the latest chapter in a career defined by contempt for everything the American people built together.
The Real Threat to Wilderness
Lee claims he’s protecting the environment from migrants in his latest scam. But what really ravages our borderlands are the very policies he cheers: the mining, the drilling, the clear-cutting, the endless expansion of roads and industrial sprawl.
It’s not people crossing the desert with nothing but the clothes on their backs who threaten wilderness — it’s the billionaires and their mouthpieces in Congress who see every acre as something to be sold.
Endless Destructive Opportunities
Think about what this bill actually says.
It doesn’t just target the borderlands of Arizona or Texas. The 100-mile rule would reach deep into the interior of states like Montana and Minnesota. The Boundary Waters. Glacier. Entire ecosystems that have nothing to do with immigration.
It’s the kind of sweeping, sloppily written overreach that easily tells you what’s really going on: this isn’t about security at all. It’s about erasing protections wherever possible. It’s about turning the most sacred lands in America into zones of “tactical infrastructure” — a phrase so hollow it could mean anything and probably will.
What You Can Do
If there’s one thing we’ve learned over the past year, it’s that outrage alone isn’t enough. Congress needs to hear from people who actually know what’s at stake. People who hike these trails, who camp with their kids in these places, who understand what “wilderness” means.
Mike Lee is hoping no one will notice — that this bill will slip into a bigger package under the radar. That’s how this always happens. Don’t let him be right.
I know you’re tired, but please write to your senators and representatives. Tell them you oppose the Border Lands Conservation Act and any attempt to weaken the Wilderness Act. Keep it short, personal, and unmistakably clear.
Sample Email
Subject: Oppose the Border Lands Conservation Act
Dear [Senator/Representative],
I’m writing to urge you to oppose Senator Mike Lee’s Border Lands Conservation Act or any legislation that weakens the Wilderness Act.
The Wilderness Act of 1964 is one of America’s defining achievements. It protects our most sacred landscapes in their original state — untrammeled, undeveloped, and free from the machinery of man. That was the promise made to future generations: that at least some places would remain as they were, untouched and whole.
The proposed Border Lands Conservation Act would break that promise. By allowing roads, fences, and “tactical infrastructure” inside designated wilderness, it would erase the very meaning of the word. Once a wilderness can be bulldozed for any purpose, it’s no longer wilderness at all.
This isn’t about politics or ideology. It’s about the principle that a precious few parts of this country should remain beyond exploitation — places where the silence, the dark skies, and the living systems endure exactly as Congress intended.
Please defend the promise of the Wilderness Act in full. Do not allow any exceptions that open the door to development within its boundaries.
Sincerely,
[Your Name]
[City, State]
Until next time,
Jim
Tuesday’s election results is the first hopeful sign since the election of our grifter-in-chief last November. More Than Just Parks has provided all of us with a roadmap to make our voices heard. We need to go further, however, building on Tuesday’s election results and toss the Trump Party out of power at the local, state and national levels next November. Between now and then, we need to let all of the MAGA Republicans know that we’re coming for their jobs. If they can shut down the federal government then it’s time for us to shut down the Republican Party.
Thank you for the heads up - I contacted my Senators and Representative today.