Joshua Tree National Park is one of several national parks that has been tasked with sending law enforcement park rangers to the U.S.-Mexican border to assist the U.S. Border Patrol. About a dozen rangers work as law enforcement officers in the 1,200-square mile Joshua Tree National Park—which will have about 3 million visitors this year—writing speeding tickets and making arrests for drunk driving, drug possession, and other crimes. At least one—and up to three—of those rangers are being temporarily relocated to Arizona and Texas. The “surge” in rangers at the southern border started as a pilot program in 2018 and has been extended to at least the fall of 2020. Critics of the program say that park rangers are not properly trained in border security and immigration enforcement. Supporters say the administration has no choice since Congress did not allocate $5 billion for a border wall in its stopgap budget signed by Donald Trump last week. The Trump administration has cut $481 million from the National Park Service’s budget for next fiscal year, at a time when visitation is rising at national parks across the country.
