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Federal agencies announced Friday an agreement to swap nearly a mile of national wildlife refuge borderland near Sasabe to allow completion of border fencing, drawing fire from environmentalists.

The Department of Homeland Security will acquire 5.8 acres along the border now owned by the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge. It needs the land to complete a seven-mile stretch of fencing to slow illegal immigration there.

That land, 8-10ths of a mile along the Mexican border, had been privately owned 100 years ago and later was acquired by the refuge, about 60 miles southwest of Tucson.

As such, it was not part of a 60-foot wide easement on the border’s edge being used to build fencing aimed at stopping illegal immigrants and drug traffickers — including seven miles of so-called pedestrian fencing in the Sasabe corridor.

Under the exchange, Customs and Border Protection and its parent agency, DHS, are to buy and transfer to the refuge adjacent land of comparable habitat and value.

The refuge’s acting manager and a spokesman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said the decision eliminates any need to show the fencing would be compatible for the refuge.

But Defenders of Wildlife spokesman Matt Clark said the fence won’t be compatible with the refuge’s mission or regulations.