THE NEWYORKER, MARCH 8, 2021 3
tections or the Convention Against
Torture—due process requires access
to an attorney. Prisoners facing the
death penalty are afforded that right,
along with many other procedural pro
tections. Our legal system fails if it
does not provide analogous protec
tions, including the right to counsel,
to those facing death through immi
gration proceedings.
John Mills
Principal Attorney
Phillips Black
Berkeley, Calif.
1
A RETURN TO CONSERVATIONElizabeth Kolbert, whose reporting
on climate change is prescient, writes,
“Congress hasn’t approved a major
environmental bill since 1990” (Com
ment, February 8th). This may be
true, but in 2019 Congress enacted
the John D. Dingell, Jr., Conserva
tion, Management, and Recreation
Act, which added 1.3 million acres to
our National Wilderness Preserva
tion System; enlarged many national
parks, such as Acadia, in Maine; es
tablished or expanded numerous con
servation areas (notably, in Utah and
California); and added to the Na
tional Trails System and the National
Wild and Scenic Rivers System. The
Senate approved the bill 92–8, and
the House of Representatives passed
it 363–62. Now, in accordance with
President Joe Biden’s goal of preserv
ing thirty per cent of our landscape
by 2030, many more such pieces of
conservation legislation are in the
works. These will be good for the land
and for wildlife, and vital for meet
ing our commitment to reversing cli
mate change.
Doug Scott
Palm Springs, Calif.THE CHURCH’S LAND GRAB
David Owen’s fascinating piece about
the cartographer Molly Burhans’s at
tempts to map the Catholic Church’s
lands, with the goal of empowering
the Church to fight climate change,
does not fully explain how the Church
came to own two hundred million
acres of land (“Promised Land,” Feb
ruary 8th). The answer involves the
Doctrine of Discovery, a collection of
edicts issued by the Church through
out the past thousand years that sent
explorers around the world to appro
priate land that was unoccupied by
Christians. Ever since, the logic of
terra nullius, or “nobody’s land,” has
been used to justify the seizure of land
and water and the accompanying at
tacks on indigenous sovereignty. Vi
sionary though Burhans’s project may
be, the work of harnessing the power
of the Catholic Church to battle cli
mate change assumes that the Church
should be the institution making de
cisions about what to do with these
lands. Any efforts to address environ
mental concerns through the Catho
lic Church that do not grapple with
its history of colonization will come
up short.
Erika Arthur
Freedom, Maine
1
WHEN ASYLUM SEEKERS
FACE DEATH
Sarah Stillman’s article vividly chron
icles how the Trump Administration’s
policy changes have harmed immi
grants and refugees (“The Damage,”
February 8th). It’s worth adding that
U.S. law doesn’t guarantee the right
to an attorney in immigration pro
ceedings. As the A.C.L.U. and other
groups have demonstrated through
lawsuits on behalf of young children,
it is absurd and immoral to force asy
lum seekers to navigate these proceed
ings without legal counsel. In cases in
which there is a credible claim that
deportation could result in death—as
when immigrants invoke asylum pro
•
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