"Coyotes on the other side of the border know the national forest is a corridor to promote their agenda," Bonner Cohen, a senior fellow with the National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR), said. "Having a new wilderness area placed adjacent to the existing corridor will just open the floodgates. Environmentalism is being used as a pretext to harm national security." Federal lawmakers who are genuinely serious about enforcing the border can audition for public support and state compliance by offering up new legislation that expands the scope and reach of border security agents. As it now stands, agents can only react to movements and incursions from the other side. "Right now, it is the smugglers and illegal aliens who decide where the Border Patrol works, not the Border Patrol," Taylor, the retired agent, said. "They simply move laterally along the border line once they are stopped in a certain area. Grijalva's legislation would do great harm to our national security because they would restrict our agents from operating in key corridors and make it easier for smugglers to predict the movements of our agents and make adjustments." The Sky Island Alliance (SKI), an environmental group formed in 1991, has been the major impetus behind the wilderness protection legislation and is opposed to motorized activity in the Coronado National Forest. Mike Quigley, the group's wilderness campaign coordinator, does not view border security and environmental protection as "an either or choice." The rugged nature of the terrain is a natural barrier against illegal crossings, he has argued. Kent Lundgren, chairman of the National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers (NAFBPO), is less sanguine about public policy measures that would remove agents from the security calculus. "It is imperative that the authority vested in agents and their ability to defend our borders remain seamless and unencumbered," Lundgren wrote in an open letter to policymakers. "It is obvious that a wilderness designation, the most restrictive of all federal land designations, along our international border would create adverse impediments in efforts to perform these difficult and dangerous responsibilities."