Advisory: Virtual Panel to Highlight Growing Movement to Defend Public Lands from Border Walls, Detention Centers

On Tuesday, March 24, the Sierra Club is hosting a virtual panel discussion with conservation, wildlife, tribal, and legal experts to highlight the growing movement working to defend our public lands from the impacts of border walls and detention centers.

WHAT: Virtual panel hosted by the Sierra Club, open to the public and media

WHEN: 4pm PT / 7pm ET on Tuesday, March 24, 2026

WHERE: This is a virtual event. RSVP at https://act.sierraclub.org/events/details?formcampaignid=701Po00001awa4HIAQ

WHO: Panelists include:

• Edward Ornstein , Deputy General Counsel and Embassy Director, Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida (Topic: Alligator Alcatraz & Miccosukee Indian Reservation )
• Jaclyn M Lopez , Associate Professor of Law and Director of the Jacobs Public Interest Law Clinic for Democracy and the Environment, Stetson University College of Law (Topic: Alligator Alcatraz / Big Cypress National Preserve in Florida)
• Dani Purvis , Field Scientist and Data Systems Associate at Roots Down, Wildlands Chair of the Sierra Club's Georgia Chapter (Topic: Folkston ICE Processing Center / Okefenokee National Refuge in Georgia)
• Tricia Cortez , Executive Director, Rio Grande International Studies Center (Topic: Southern Border Wall & Lower Rio Grande, TX)
• Facilitator: Sherman Neal II , Deputy Director, Sierra Club's Military Outdoors program (Topic: Parks Not Prisons campaign)

WHY: From Big Bend National Park in Texas to Big Cypress National Preserve in Florida, some of America's most treasured landscapes are currently under threat from proposals for border wall expansion, militarization, and detention facilities.

The Sierra Club's Parks Not Prisons campaign and Military Outdoors program are working to highlight how construction of new border wall and detention infrastructure threatens to fragment wildlife habitat, restrict access to public lands, and permanently change the experience of these landscapes for visitors and for indigenous communities that inhabit these lands.