From neighborhood parks to remote wildernesses, the MAGA regime is weaponizing public places for refuge and recreation so they can abduct our neighbors from their communities and families. Now we face an urgent need to defend our core freedoms to move safely, breathe clean air, protect healthy water, and provide a better life for our children and future generations. 

This is a brief on proposed legislation and executive policies by MAGA republicans related to mass surveillance on public land, public land militarization, and the abduction of our community members based on what we look like, where we come from, and how we express our beliefs.

Mass Surveillance

Public lands of all kinds, near and far, are places for solace and meaningful connections with nature and your people. But dangerous policy changes and proposed bills aim to put recreationists under the eye of surveillance technology to bolster ICE and CBP’s ability to target black and brown individuals, people with an accent, and anyone they are with, while enjoying outdoor recreation activities. These active policy changes and proposed bills favor private security and construction firms whose bottom lines rely on mass surveillance at local and national public lands.

Secretarial Order 3442 and the Land and Water Conservation Fund

In September 2025, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum issued Secretarial Order 3442 affecting the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF). It redirects money reserved for parks and outdoor recreation areas nationwide to install guard posts, video surveillance systems, detection devices, and other infrastructure associated with mass surveillance directly within and adjacent to public parks and outdoor recreation areas. 

As of the date of this publication, the National Park Service (NPS) has not updated the Land and Water Conservation Fund Stateside Program Manual, which may describe additional details about this alarming policy change. The NPS, a key steward of our public lands, plays a crucial role in shaping the future of our outdoor spaces. 

Border Lands Conservation Act and the FLASH Act

These bills would be more accurately called the Mass Surveillance and Demolition on Public Lands Act. El Border Lands Conservation Act (Senator Mike Lee, UT) and FLASH Act (Representative Juan Ciscomani, AZ) are bills introduced in the 119th Congress. They would undermine conservation management in wilderness and public lands across the northern and southern U.S. borders to proliferate mass surveillance and desecrate sacred and cultural areas. These bills would allow “tactical infrastructure” including observation points, remote video surveillance systems, motion sensors, and detection devices in wilderness areas and public lands. 

• Opposition letter on the Border Lands bill by the National Wilderness Coalition
• Opposition letter on the FLASH Act by GreenLatinos

Executive Order 14314 on National Parks

Este executive order, issued July 2025, could force the National Park Service and other agencies that steward national park units to ID visitors and record their residential or citizenship status to charge increased entrance fees and reservation fees for “nonresidents”. This is another way for the MAGA regime to record your recreational habits while inflaming anti-immigrant sentiment. 

Why Mass Surveillance Is Dangerous

These bills and policies will:

• proliferate polluting generator-powered surveillance systems;
• proliferate remotely operated cameras recording the biometric data and habits of park users and passersby without consent; and
• proliferate the presence of MAGA immigration policy enforcers at public outdoor recreation areas of all kinds. 

Already, ICE and CBP have confronted and detained tens of thousands of black and brown community members because of their skin color through the use of surveillance technologies (including those that scrape biometric data) under the shield of the temporary SCOTUS ruling allowing immigration enforcers to racially and ethnically profile community members. This blatant violation of our core values of freedom, equality, and justice for all should stir a sense of injustice in each of us. 

We should be asked for our consent before our biometric data is tracked and recorded. The Department of Homeland Security does not have the right to gather your biometric data–that’s why you can opt out of biometric facial screening with CBP and TSA. Consent is nonnegotiable and essential to data privacy. Without consent, the MAGA regime can use our biometric data to more easily harass, disappear, and detain our family members, teachers, neighbors, and colleagues.

Public Land Militarization

Beyond mass surveillance technologies and strategies, the MAGA regime has taken active steps to give the army and private security firms control over public lands and allow them to pollute and destroy nature.

U.S. Army Control of Southern Border Public Lands

National Security Presidential Memorandum 4 authorized the Secretaries of the Interior and Agriculture to militarize public lands on the southern U.S. border. In April, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum transferred jurisdiction over 109,000 acres of public land in New Mexico to the Army.

Interagency cooperation on borderland management has been ongoing for decades. The National Park Service had a pre-existing agreement with Border Patrol to ensure collaboration and minimize harm to wilderness and visitors. Before the MAGA regime undermined these agreements, border land management was usually in compliance with our generations of hard-earned environmental law.

Detention Centers

At the Everglades detention center, coined “Alligator Alcatraz” by President Trump, at least 1,800 migrants are detained. The facility still operates in the heart of Big Cypress National Preserve y Miccosukee Tribe lands, despite a federal court ruling ordering it to cease further construction and detentions in response to Tribal sovereignty and environmental law violations. 

Within recent months, the National Park Service website about the detention center location (the former Everglades Jetport) was removed (alongside other history erasures from public lands and in museums). The Miccosukee Tribe intervened in a lawsuit aiming to shutter the facility because it is destroying Tribal members’ freedom to carry out their traditional and ceremonial relationships with the surrounding Tribal and public land. The National Park Service stewards Big Cypress National Preserve. This freshwater swamp is home to tropical birds, the endangered Florida Panther, the endangered Florida Bonneted Bat, black bears, river otters, manatees, mountain lions, Bowfin fish, white-tailed deer, turkey, mangroves, orchids, red-shouldered hawks, and many more species. These species’ habitat is the home and traditional hunting, fishing, and trapping grounds of the Seminole Tribe and the Miccosukee Tribe, including ten Tribal villages within three miles of the detention center. 

More than 2,000 people have joined the Florida Interfaith Coalition every Sunday outside of the detention center for prayer vigils and to demand clergy access for the abducted community members. 

Border Wall

The construction of the San Rafael Valley border wall–which the FLASH Act would intensify–cuts through the Coronado National Forest, harming conservation lands and community health north and south of the border by cutting off an essential migratory wildlife corridor. The FLASH Act would also expedite border wall construction elsewhere on the southern border and levy increased penalties on migrants, further exacerbating the humanitarian crisis. 

We Move Forward

Project 2025 was written to enrich billionaires by privatizing public assets and shuttering essential government services. The MAGA regime is handing over jurisdiction of public lands to the Army to benefit military contractors while allowing public dollars to finance surveillance technology, the border wall, and detention centers. This is a favor to private security firms, AI tech companies, construction firms, manufacturers, and other companies profiting from mass surveillance, bulldozing sacred places, and harassing and disappearing our community members. 

Instead of addressing massive economic inequality in our nation and eliminating greenhouse gas emissions so communities everywhere are more safe and stable, the MAGA regime is scapegoating people of all backgrounds who made courageous sacrifices to start new lives in the United States and Puerto Rico. They are getting in the way of people who want to work hard for a dignified life, so billionaires can profit from mass surveillance in outdoor recreation areas and the militarization of our national public lands. These billionaires planned for 2025, but they didn’t plan for us.

The majority of us believe that it is our right to enjoy the outdoors safely. Most of us want this for future generations. We live in a mutually beneficial relationship with our public land and water. When they are healthy, whole, and honest, we are too. That’s why people like us, nationwide, continue to speak up. Together, we successfully took down a proposal in Congress to sell off our public lands. Millions of people, both rural and urban, continue to gather at rallies and protests to oppose the MAGA agenda. Millions commented, shared social media posts, and wrote to the press in defense of roadless forests, conservation and landscape health, as well as our national monuments. 

We keep showing up for nature. In doing so, we must support one another. Ahora, seguimos adelante for racial justice, for our democracy, and for policies that allow people to flourish in this country, like an accessible pathway to citizenship and a just and humane immigration system.

Desde los parques de nuestros barrios hasta las áreas silvestres remotas, el régimen MAGA está usando espacios públicos para el refugio, el descanso y la recreación para secuestrar a nuestras vecinas y vecinos de sus comunidades y familias. Hoy enfrentamos una urgencia real por defender nuestras libertades básicas: movernos con seguridad, respirar aire limpio, proteger agua saludable, y construir un mejor futuro para nuestros nenes y las generaciones que vienen.

Este informe resume legislación propuesta y acciones ejecutivas de los republicanos MAGA que buscan autorizar vigilancia masiva en tierras públicas, militarizar tierras públicas, y justificar la desaparición de nuestras comunidades en base a cómo nos vemos, de dónde venimos, y cómo expresamos nuestras creencias.

Vigilancia Masiva

Las tierras públicas cercanas y lejanas son espacios de sanación, conexión profunda con la naturaleza y convivencia con nuestra gente. Sin embargo, cambios de política y proyectos de ley buscan poner a las personas que recrean al aire libre bajo sistemas de vigilancia para facilitar que ICE y CBP apunten a personas negras, morenas, personas con acento, y a cualquiera que esté con ellas, mientras disfrutando actividades de recreación al aire libre. Estas políticas benefician a empresas privadas de seguridad y construcción cuyo negocio depende de expandir vigilancia masiva en tierras públicas locales y nacionales.

Orden Secretarial 3442 y el Fondo de Conservación de Tierra y Agua (LWCF)

En septiembre de 2025, el Secretario del Interior Doug Burgum emitió Orden Secretarial 3442 que redirige fondos del LWCF. Redirecciona dinero reserva para parques y áreas recreativas al aire libre por todo el país hacia la instalación de puestos de guardia, sistemas de videovigilancia, dispositivos de detección, y otra infraestructura de vigilancia masiva dentro y cerca de parques y áreas recreativas.

Hasta la fecha de esta publicación, el Servicio de Parques Nacionales (NPS) no ha actualizado el Manual del Programa del LWCF, donde deberían aparecer detalles adicionales de este alarmante cambio. El NPS, un administrador clave de nuestras tierras públicas, juega un papel decisivo en cómo será el futuro de nuestros espacios al aire libre.

Ley de Conservación de Tierras Fronterizas y FLASH Act

Estos proyectos de ley deberían llamarse realmente la Ley de Vigilancia Masiva y Destrucción de Tierras Públicas. La Ley de Conservación de Tierras Fronterizas (Senador Mike Lee, UT) y el FLASH Act (Representante Juan Ciscomani, AZ) fueron introducidos en el 119º Congreso. Debilitarían la gestión de áreas silvestres y  la protección de tierras públicas a lo largo de ambas fronteras de EE.UU. para expandir vigilancia masiva y profanar lugares sagrados y culturales. Estos proyectos de ley permitirían “infraestructura táctica” como puntos de observación, videovigilancia remota, sensores de movimiento y dispositivos de detección en áreas silvestres y tierras públicas.

• Carta de oposición al Ley de Conservación de Tierras Fronterizas de la National Wilderness Coalition
• Carta de oposición al FLASH Act de GreenLatinos

Orden Ejecutiva 14314 sobre Parques Nacionales

Emitida en julio 2025, esta orden ejecutiva podría obligar al NPS y otras agencias que administran unidades de parques nacionales a identificar a los visitantes y registrar su estatus residencial o ciudadano para cobrar mayores tarifas de entrada y reservaciones para los “no residentes”. Es otro mecanismo del régimen MAGA para registrar tus hábitos recreativos y avivar el sentimiento anti-inmigrante.

Por qué la Vigilancia Masiva es Peligrosa

Estas políticas y proyectos de ley:

• expanden sistemas de vigilancia contaminantes operados por generadores;
• expanden las cámaras operadas remotamente que registran datos biométricos y hábitos de los usuarios del parque y los transeúntes sin consentimiento; y
• expanden la presencia de ejecutores de políticas de inmigración MAGA en áreas públicas de recreación al aire libre de todo tipo.

ICE y CBP ya han confrontado y detenido a decenas de miles de personas negras y morenas usando tecnologías de vigilancia (incluida la que extrae datos biométricos) bajo un fallo temporal de SCOTUS que permite a los agentes de inmigración perfilar racial y étnico a nuestros vecinos. Esta violación descarada de nuestros valores fundamentales de libertad, igualidad y justicia para todos debe indignarnos a todos.

Se nos debe pedir nuestro consentimiento antes de que nuestros datos biométricos sean rastreados y registrados. El Departamento de Seguridad Nacional no tiene derecho a recolectar tus datos biométricos–por eso se puede elegir salir del escaneo facial biométrico con CBP y TSA. El consentimiento no es negociable y es esencial para la privacidad de los datos. Sin consentimiento, el régimen MAGA puede usar nuestros datos biométricos para acosar, desaparecer y detener más fácilmente a nuestros familiares, maestros, vecinos y colegas.

Militarización de Tierras Públicas

Más allá de tecnologías y estrategias de vigilancia masiva, el régimen MAGA ha tomado pasos activos para entregar control de tierras públicas al ejército y a empresas privadas de seguridad, permitiéndoles destruir y contaminar estos ecosistemas.

Control del Ejército EE.UU. sobre Tierras Públicas en la Frontera Sur

el Memorándum Presidencial de Seguridad Nacional 4 autorizó a los Secretarios del Interior y Agricultura a militarizar tierras públicas en la frontera sur. En abril, el Secretario del Interior Doug Burgum transfirió la jurisdicción de 109,000 acres de tierras públicas en Nuevo México al Ejército.

La cooperación interagencial en manejo de tierras fronterizas ha existido por décadas. El NPS tenía acuerdos previos con la Patrulla Fronteriza para garantizar colaboración y minimizar daños a áreas silvestres y visitantes. Antes de que MAGA destruyera estos acuerdos, la administración fronteriza usualmente cumplía con décadas de leyes ambientales arduamente ganadas.

Centros de Detención

En el centro de detención de los Everglades,apodado por el Presidente Trump como “Alligator Alcatraz”, hay al menos 1,800 personas detenidas. Sigue operando dentro el corazón de Big Cypress National Preserve y tierras Tribales Miccosukee, pese a un fallo federal ordenado detener construcción y detenciones por violaciones a soberanía Tribal y a las leyes ambientales.

La página oficial del NPS sobre la ubicación del centro de detención (el antiguo Everglades Jetport) fue removido en meses recientes (junto con otras borraduras de historia en tierras públicas y museos). La Tribu Miccosukee intervino en una demanda para cerrarlo porque destruye su derecho a practicar relaciones culturales y ceremoniales con estas tierras tribales y públicas. Este humedal de agua dulce es hogar de aves tropicales, la Pantera de Florida en peligro de extinción, el Murciélago Bonneted de Florida en peligro, osos negros, nutrias de río, manatíes, pumas, peces Bowfin, ciervos cola blanca, pavos, manglares, orquídeas, halcones de hombro rojo, y muchas otras especies. Su hábitat es hogar y terreno tradicional de caza, pesca y trampeo de las Tribus Seminole y Miccosukee, incluyendo diez pueblos Tribales dentro de tres millas del centro de detención.

Más de 2,000 personas se reúnen cada domingo con la Florida Interfaith Coalition afuera del centro para vigilias de oración y para exigir acceso pastoral para las personas secuestradas.

Muro Fronterizo

La construcción del muro del Valle San Rafael–que el FLASH Act aceleraría–atraviesa el Bosque Nacional Coronado, destruyendo tierras de conservación y salud comunitaria en ambos lados de la frontera al cortar un corredor de fauna migratorio crítico. El FLASH Act también aceleraría la construcción en otros puntos de la frontera sur y aumentaría penas contra personas migrantes, empeorando la crisis humanitaria.

Seguimos Adelante

Project 2025 fue diseñado para enriquecer a milmillonarios mediante privatizando bienes públicos y desmontando servicios gubernamentales esenciales. El régimen MAGA está entregando jurisdicción de tierras públicas al Ejército para beneficiar a contratistas militares mientras permite que dólares públicos financien tecnología de vigilancia, el muro fronterizo, y centros de detención. Esto es un favor para empresas privadas de seguridad, compañía de IA, firmas constructoras, fabricantes, y otros negocios que lucran con vigilancia masiva, destruyendo lugares sagrados, y hostigando y desapareciendo a nuestras comunidades.

En vez de enfrentar la desigualdad económica doméstica y reducir emisiones para que comunidades en todas partes sean más seguras y estables, el régimen MAGA culpa a personas de todos los orígenes que hicieron sacrificios valientes para comenzar nuevas vidas en Estados Unidos y Puerto Rico. Buscan impedir a personas que trabajen duro por una vida digna para que billonarios puedan lucrar con la vigilancia masiva en áreas de recreación al aire libre y la militarización de nuestras tierras públicas nacionales. Estos billonarios planearon para 2025–pero no planearon para nosotros.

La mayoría de nosotros cree que tenemos derecho a disfrutar el aire libre con seguridad. Todo el mundo quiere esto para las futuras generaciones. Tenemos una relación viva y recíproca con la tierra y el agua pública. Cuando están sanas, completas, y cuentan la verdad, nosotras también. Por eso personas como nosotras, en todo el país, siguen levantando la voz. Juntos logramos derrotar propuestas para vender nuestras tierras públicas. Millones de personas, rurales y urbanas, siguen organizándose en protestas para frenar la agenda MAGA. Millones comentaron, compartieron posts en redes sociales, y escribieron a la prensa en defensa de bosques sin caminos, conservación y salud del paisaje, y nuestros monumentos nacionales.

135 years ago on October 1, an Act of Congress established Yosemite National Park making it the third national park designated after Yellowstone and Sequoia. There, the first Latino National Park Service employee of El Salvadoran heritage joined the Park Service as an Assistant Park Naturalist in 1927: George Meléndez Wright. At 23 years old, Melendéz Wright wrote park history articles, taught field classes, and helped establish the Yosemite Museum.

At the time that Meléndez Wright started his career in national park stewardship, the National Park Service managed Yosemite more like an amusement park than a living ecosystem and cultural landscape. The Park Service once allowed visitors to feed bears–a tourist attraction that undermined the safety of visitors and wildlife alike. Meléndez Wright spoke out against this practice, urging the importance of scientific observation and data to steward our national parks. 

By 1928 with a year of public service under his belt, Meléndez Wright sought out to make right the Park Service’s lack of wildlife management strategies. He conducted the first wildlife inventory and established the National Park Service’s first wildlife management plan titled, Fauna No. 1. That plan and a subsequent wildlife survey and management plan, Fauna No. 2, would guide the National Park Service Wildlife Division for years after his untimely death in 1936. 

While endeavoring to complete these novel wildlife inventories, the Congressionally authorized budget fell short. Meléndez Wright was so committed to biological well being in national parks that he used more than half of his own wealth to finish the surveys and pay the salaries of his biology team. 

Through these wildlife inventories, Meléndez Wright’s management plans led to novel policies in national park management: an end to the bear feeding attractions, stewardship of fallen trees and snags as habitat and food sources for symbiotic wildlife, reintroduction of native species exterminated from a park, protections for predatory species to predate upon other animals in the park, and more. 

With these policies, Melendéz Wright made the case for the establishment of the Wildlife Division at the National Park Service. He led the Wildlife Division until President Roosevelt appointed him to head the Natural Resources Board in 1934 to integrate biology, zoology and more biological sciences in Parks across the country, and research areas that would ultimately become national parks, like the Everglades in Florida and Big Bend in Texas. 

George Meléndez Wright’s life work modernized the National Park Service, transforming the agency into a better steward of the ecosystems where national parks belong. But today, there is not a single place at Yosemite National Park commemorating Melendéz Wright’s legacy. No exhibits, no signage, and no storytelling infrastructure recount the remarkable sacrifices and contributions Melendéz Wright offered our nation. 

Amid another MAGA Republican government shutdown, the forced resignation of more than 100,000 public servants on September 30th, the looming threat of increased reductions in federal labor force, and the ongoing erasure of historical and climate change interpretation at national park units, it could not be more clear that the Trump Administration’s aim is to dismantle the function of public lands nationwide: to allow us to keep calling the United States and territories home. Because national parks and the diverse array of public lands nationwide retain their wild, scenic, and historic characteristics, we get the benefit of remaining in right relationship with the natural world and we instill a sense of belonging in this nation for everyone. 

Melendéz Wright, the first Latino National Park Service employee and the father of wildlife stewardship at the park service deserves to be remembered. Through honoring his contributions, and defending the role of the park service in recording history, telling our stories, and caring for nature, we can protect public lands for the next 135 years and beyond.