Lawsuit over border wall plans in Tohono O'odham Nation went to court for the first time this week

A case asking whether the Trump administration can build a border wall across tribal land in Arizona appeared in court for the first time this week.

President Donald Trump’s first administration built a 30-foot steel bollard wall across just over 450 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border. Some 230 miles of it were in Arizona, but the roughly 60-mile long stretch of border inside the Tohono O’odham Nation was not included.

That’s changing now, as the administration plans another border wall along vast stretches of public land — and inside the tribal nation.

The tribe filed suit this year to try and stop it. Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva, whose district includes the Tohono O’odham Nation, says the plan risks destroying important cultural sites.

“This administration is willing and continuously violating tribal sovereignty, and threatening all of these culturally and environmentally significant lands,” she said. “And once you have disrupted the land, there is no way to put it back together.”

This week in a Washington, D.C., district court, attorneys for the tribe argued that wall plans disregard sovereign Tohono O’odham boundaries — which can only be changed by Congress. The government argues the 60-foot stretch of land where the wall would be built is under federal control.

That stretch, known as the Roosevelt Reservation, runs the length of the border in New Mexico, Arizona and California. Last year, the Trump administration began setting up military zones along swaths of the stretch, where migrants can be detained on misdemeanor charges for trespassing on military property.