A resolution passed 4-1 by the Pima County Board of Supervisors asks Congressional lawmakers to help prevent the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona from becoming a military zone.
The measure — brought by Pima County Supervisor Jen Allen — says that since the '90s, ongoing militarization along the U.S.-Mexico border has resulted in thousands of migrant deaths, increased racial profiling in the Tohono O’odham Nation and the degradation of sacred sites and biodiversity.
It also notes further militarization that's happened under President Donald Trump. A new military zone was established along the border in New Mexico earlier this year, and new border wall segments are planned along stretches near Yuma and south of Tucson — despite reporting record-low numbers of border crossings.
Allen said her resolution aims to prevent further damage.
“The threats to our conservation plan and some of our beautiful spaces, is just one I feel that we need to stand against, and that is exactly what this resolution does,” she said during the supervisors’ meeting Tuesday. “[It] calls upon our congressional delegation to try to protect the Arizona-Mexico border from this transition to Roosevelt Reservation and becoming a military base.”
The Roosevelt Reservation is a 60-foot strip of land normally along the border in New Mexico, Arizona and California. The stretch in New Mexico was transferred to the Department of Defense to establish a military zone earlier this year.
The new resolution opposes that transfer and additional federal funding for border wall construction proposed in the U.S. House spending package. It also directed Pima County Administrator Jan Lesher and county lobbyists to bring those concerns to Washington.
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Activists have spent the last 70 days camped around and inside a cottonwood tree right along the border in the tiny town of Lochiel. The tree was the last of an old grove estimated to be up to 250 years old. -
The National Park Service has denied an activist group’s request to place water stations along the Arizona-Mexico border — marking the first time their permit has been denied in more than two decades. -
Immigration and Customs Enforcement has poured billions into expanding detention capacity under the second Trump administration, but a new watchdog report shows tens of millions of it were wasted. -
Gov. Katie Hobbs is siding with the Tohono O'odham Nation in its bid to at least delay work on a border wall the federal government wants to build along its southern boundary with Mexico. -
The Las Playas Intaglio is a Tohono O’odham sacred site that features a huge fish-shaped earth carving right along the border in what is today the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge.
