Border wall brings destruction to Tohono O’odham Nation

“There is no [Tohono] O’odham word for wall,” Rancher Jacob Serapo said in February 2017, after President Donald Trump signed an executive order to build a wall between the United States and Mexico. Roughly 62 miles of the wall will bisect Tohono O’odham land, which lies on both sides of the border about 60 miles from Tucson, Arizona, and in Sonora, Mexico. 

Since border wall construction on Tohono O’odham land began in February, it has already disturbed some of the tribe’s sacred sites and disrupted their culture and customs. In June, Ned Norris Jr., the Tohono O’odham Nation chairman, was among five Arizona tribal leaders who took part in a National Congress of American Indians virtual forum concerning threats to tribal lands from U.S. government actions. Norris said the federal government has given tribal leaders almost no notice about impending construction and has been indifferent to their concerns. 

The Tohono O’odham people have lived in the area that is now southern and central Arizona and northern Mexico “since time immemorial,” according to a Tohono O’odham Nation press release stating their opposition to the border wall. 

After the Gadsden Purchase of 1853 divided the tribe’s traditional lands, 2.8 million acres remained on the Arizona side of the border, while a smaller parcel became part of present-day Sonora, Mexico. The Tohono O’odham tribe has approximately 34,000 enrolled members, with about 2,000 residing in Mexico. 

“Long before there was a border wall, tribal members traveled back and forth to visit family, participate in cultural and religious events, and many other practices,” the tribe stated. “For these reasons and many others, the Nation has opposed fortified walls on the border for many years.”

The Tohono O’odham Nation has dealt with problems at its border for years. According to the opposition brief, the tribe’s police force spends 60% of its time on border-related issues, and the tribe spends an average of $3 million annually on border security and issues related to immigration, including migrant medical care costs. The tribe spends “$2,500 on average for the autopsies of bodies of migrants found dead on its land, mostly from dehydration,” according to the New York Times. 

Since 1974, an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office has been located on the Tohono O’odham reservation. Vehicle barriers were constructed in 2007 and 2008. The nation gave 5 acres of its land to U.S. Customs and Border Protection to build agent bases and spaces to detain immigrants. 

These efforts are more effective than a wall, tribal leaders maintain. “Building a border wall has never been considered a practical solution,” according to the issue brief.

A continuous wall on tribal lands along the southern border would negatively impact the Tohono O’odham Nation’s culture and the environment, preventing tribal members from making traditional crossings for marriages, religious pilgrimages and burials. Construction is also destroying culturally significant plants and sacred sites, including burial grounds and archaeological areas. 

In February, Norris Jr. testified before the House Committee on Natural Resources’ Subcommittee for Indigenous Peoples of the United States. He said federal agencies had not consulted them before bulldozing and blasting the tribe’s religious and cultural sites during border wall construction at Monument Hill and Quitobaquito Springs. He called upon Congress to curb Department of Homeland Security (DHS) actions such as the waiving of cultural preservation measures and environmental laws to speed up construction. 

“Our history as a people is being obliterated and our ancestors’ remains are being desecrated,” Norris Jr. said. “Congress must act to restrict or remove DHS’ dangerously broad authority to waive cultural preservation laws, and compel them to consult with tribes on these issues. Preserving these sites is important not only to the O’odham, but to the history and culture of the United States.” 

At the National Congress of American Indians virtual forum in June, Norris Jr. said the U.S. government is apathetic to the tribe’s concerns. “They have failed their responsibility to protect our interest. They have failed under their obligation and duty to ensure their trust responsibility is fulfilled,” he said. “They continue to fail us every single day that they continue to allow the Trump administration to continue to destroy the sacred sites, the archaeological sites, in those areas.” 

Politicians from the Arizona-Mexico border region are generally divided along party lines on the issue. Sen. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., has not commented on the portion of the border wall on Tohono O’odham lands but supports the wall and has voted in favor of it. She supported a bill to provide $5.7 billion in federal funding for the wall, and voted against a measure to overturn Trump’s emergency declaration for border wall funding. (McSally’s communications directors did not respond to requests for an interview.)

Rep. Raul Grijalva, a Democrat who represents Arizona’s 3rd District, which borders Nogales, Mexico, and California, has urged the Trump administration to comply with federal trust responsibilities and consult with the Tohono O’odham before constructing the wall. In January, Grijalva sent a letter to the acting secretary of homeland security outlining his concerns with the agency’s actions. In February, he testified on the impacts of the border wall on the Tohono O’odham Nation before a House subcommittee on appropriations for homeland security.

“Trump’s border wall continues to damage environmental treasures and sacred Native American sites like Quitobaquito Springs and Monument Hill in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument,” Rep. Grijalva said in a statement to North American Project. “Trump’s wall has brought nothing but destruction to Southern Arizona and that includes the blatant disregard for the Tohono O’odham’s history, culture and sacred sites. This is one of many reasons why we should end wall construction once and for all.”