The chairman of a Native American tribe along the Arizona-Mexico border says his office is assessing its options after armed federal agents entered tribal land with border wall contractors earlier this week.
The Tohono O’odham Nation spans 62 miles of the border and has tribal members on both sides. The U.S. has erected vehicle barriers — squat metal fencing made of old railroad ties — along with roads and surveillance towers but never a wall.
The Trump administration announced plans to build one along the stretch for the first time this summer, and the tribe filed suit to stop construction. Earlier this month, a federal judge denied their request to block the work and since then, tribal police have been escorting construction workers off the reservation using a trespassing law.
But this week, contractors entered and stayed — guarded by federal personnel. Footage provided by the tribe shows heavy machinery being used to dig a borehole for soil sampling.
Tohono O’odham Chairman Verlon Jose said early Tuesday morning that he began receiving calls from tribal police that armed Border Patrol agents, U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs officers and other federal entities were in the tribal nation, some wearing tactical gear and masks.
Jose says the action breaches tribal sovereignty.
“If I were to go into Washington, D.C. or any other federal establishment, and do exactly what they are doing to us here, they would not stand for it,” he said.
Jose says contractors are drilling soil sample boreholes every quarter mile, and the Border Patrol told his office that the pre-construction work will go on for seven to 10 days.
“They said they're going to stay within the 60-foot Roosevelt boundary, which the nation is of the position doesn't exist,” Jose said. “The Border Patrol, Department of Homeland Security are saying it [does], and that's one of the issues we're litigating in court.”
The 60-foot stretch, called the Roosevelt Reservation, runs the length of the border in Arizona, California and New Mexico. In his ruling this month, District Judge Richard Leon ruled the preliminary injunction requested by the Tohono O’odham Nation was “unwarranted” and said the Roosevelt Reservation, where the Trump administration has said it would build, is under the control of the U.S. government.
Jose says his tribe is appealing that order and assessing other pathways to oppose the wall.
“It is imperative that we address this issue — because what are we leaving for the generations after us?” he said. “They're going to have to deal with the aftermath of this, let alone our members in Mexico — it's already divided our people. It would even divide us even more.”
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