Big Bend National Park is on the border. BTW, it is a UNESCO designated Biosphere Reserve.

Organ Pipe National Monument is on the border.

They are being destroyed. The rest of the ecosystem, outside of those, is also worth protecting.

The border is not a park but there are parks on the border. Some parks are on the border but not all of them. Similarly squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are square.

Clearly the border is worth protecting and so are parks. I don’t see anyone disputing that in this context. You seem to be arguing against a straw man.

Your original comment dismissed concerns about protecting parks off the border by changing the subject to border conditions. This is whataboutism and is a logical fallacy.

The non-border parks aren't suffering much unusual damage. That is alarmist nonsense. Toilets may overflow, and piles of trash will form around the trash cans, but this is pretty easy to fix.

The bit in the article about walking off of trails is particularly silly. People will do that or not, unaffected by the shutdown. Nothing will change. Meanwhile, that is actually a serious problem for the border parks. There we have all sorts of unauthorized trails crudely carved through fragile ecosystems.

It is perfectly legitimate to point out hypocrisy and insane priorities, and slapping a silly label like "whataboutism" on it does nothing to change that. I swear, there is something like Godwin's law for "whataboutism".

TFA clearly explains the ways in which parks are experiencing lasting damage due to the shutdown. This is happening regardless of their location relative to the border.

Please refute the claims in the article directly instead of dismissing them out of hand.