An Arizona tribe along the U.S.-Mexico border has filed a suit in federal court against the Department of Homeland Security. The complaint names Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott and U.S. Border Patrol Chief Rosario Vasquez as defendants.
The 37,000-member tribe submitted a motion for a preliminary injunction on Wednesday before the D.C. federal district court in hopes of halting the Trump administration from looking to build a wall along its 62-mile international boundary with Mexico.
According to the Tuesday complaint, the Department of Homeland Security notified the tribe in May about its plans to solicit contracts for construction on sovereign lands — without the tribe’s consent.
Customs and Border Protection anticipates awarding the contracts sometime later this month.
“We would prefer not to file this lawsuit — and instead use these resources for our people,” said Tohono O’odham Chairman Verlon Jose in a social media message. “And it is our hope DHS will reconsider their plans once they see the strength of our arguments. However, at this point we have been left with no other choice.”
“The wall is a wasteful political gimmick,” added Tohono O’odham Vice Chairwoman Carla Johnson. “It will separate our families, desecrate our sacred sites and waters and harm our natural environment, while doing nothing to actually make us safer.”
In response to the legal filings, the Department of Homeland Security cites Mullin’s Cherokee citizenship and commitment to tribal sovereignty, telling KJZZ the agency “values its relationship with the Tohono O’odham Nation and remains focused on open communication and minimizing impacts.”
Full conversation on The Show
LAUREN GILGER: ... The Tohono O’odham sovereign tribal land spans the U.S.-Mexico border for about 62 miles. And as a result, they’ve worked with the federal government for years on immigration enforcement within their territory, from surveillance and cameras to joint patrols and checkpoints. But now they say the feds have gone too far, and they’re suing the Trump administration over its plans to build a 30-foot tall border wall that cuts straight through their land. KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio is covering it and spoke with the tribe’s chairman. He’s in studio now to tell us more. Good morning, Gabe.
GABRIEL PIETRORAZIO: Good morning, Lauren.
LAUREN GILGER: All right. So, the tribe is seeking an immediate injunction from a judge here to stop these border wall plans from going forward. What’s their complaint?
GABRIEL PIETRORAZIO: Essentially, there’s three main points of the complaint. The first being that essentially, the 2.8 million-acre reservation would be somewhat diminished by the construction of the border wall, that the wall itself would actually encroach upon their sovereign lands that traverses the international boundary with Mexico.
One of the other issues is that essentially, these contractors, who would be hired by the federal government through the Department of Homeland Security, would essentially be deemed trespassers in the eyes of the nation. And so, that would be another tack against them.
And the third is essentially bringing attention to a lot of the cultural and natural resources that could be destroyed. As we had seen during the first Trump administration, there’s a historic playbook that had unfolded with the destruction of Monument Hill, which is an important place to O’odhams and actually Apaches in the region. And that was bulldozed, essentially blasted, this Monument Hill, as part of the original, first border wall during the initial Trump administration. And so, now we’re seeing a resurgence of that.
For this long time, there hasn’t been, there is no wall. If you go to the 62-mile boundary between Mexico and the Tohono O’odham Nation, you’ll see there is no wall. It’s just different blockades or barriers for vehicles and things of that sort, some barbed wire. But it’s largely undisturbed as it sits today. So, this is seen as an ... aggressive ... attempt by the federal government to fortify this swath of land that is within the state of Arizona but has been O’odham land for thousands of years at this point.
LAUREN GILGER: Right, exactly. So, I mean, a lot of the debate here, right, Gabe, has to do with if the tribe was consulted, how they work together to plan this or not plan this. I want to play a little exchange here between Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego, who actually asked the DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin, who is Cherokee, about this in his confirmation hearing not too long ago.
SEN. RUBEN GALLEGO: And so, I think it’s important that we reestablish tribal sovereignty. And I hope, because of your background, you’ll understand, appreciate that.
MARKWAYNE MULLIN: I respect tribal sovereignty, and there’s a lot of technology. Now, we do have a job to secure the border, but we will work with with tribal nations, because there’s there’s other ways to have a physical barrier where you can have technology there, too. And I don’t think anybody would complain about that. But yes, you know my background, we have worked on tribal issues a lot, and I appreciate your passion. And I have a lot of good friends in Arizona.
PIETRORAZIO: And so, that was back in March, so the filing occurred just last week here in June. And what essentially arose from the lawsuit from the nation was that essentially, the Department of Homeland Security under the newly confirmed Markwayne Mullin as secretary came to the nation and said, "Hey, we’re going to essentially grant contracts by the end of this month to essentially build this wall."
And the nation was very upset with that because, you know, they didn’t feel like they were being consulted at all. There’s a lot of meetings and discussions with nation leadership in Washington, with the Tucson Sector Border Patrol chief, with other entities within the federal government. But as Chairman Verlon Jose told me recently, there hasn’t been any sort of official consultation between the U.S. and the Tohono O’odham Nation.
LAUREN GILGER: Let’s hear a little bit about what he had to say to you.
VERLON JOSE: They were going to issue the contract at the end of this month. So, what were we to do? Was there consultation? No. Not consultation as we would have expected.
LAUREN GILGER: So, tell us a little bit more about what the chairman had to say, Gabe. I mean, it’s kind of hard to get a one of these kind of longer interviews with him, right? And and this is an ongoing issue. What did he have to say?
GABRIEL PIETRORAZIO: I think it’s one of the most fundamental issues facing the Tohono O’odham Nation for a long time. It came to me that Chairman Jose really cares about preserving the land, but at the same time, cracking down on these irregular crossings. And he even told me that about $3 million of the nation’s funds go directly to addressing the immigration issue on the border from their own discretionary funds, essentially. So, it speaks a lot to an extra burden and costs that the nation incurs as a result of its geography of where it’s situated.
And I think they historically look at it through the lens of this, the land of the nation, although there’s a reservation, a 2.8 million-acre reservation here on the U.S. side, their land extends into Sonora, Mexico. And because of the Gadsden Purchase [in] 1854, that led to the eventual defining line after the Mexican-American War [in] 1848, that they were severed. Some of those relationships were severed, but people still cross there regularly.
So they care about the wall — or they care about immigration, but they don’t feel that a wall is the right solution to address the irregular crossings. And they said that according to the data from the federal government, they’ve seen crossings decrease, at least through the reservation itself, by over 95% or so percent, roughly so, in the last couple of years. And so, it’s working in that respect that there is relationships, there is communication with DHS and the checkpoints, and the sensors, and the cameras, and the and the, you know, cooperative raids, essentially, within the nation.
The Shadow Wolves, as people know, the O’odham-only ... Border Patrol office there that goes around and does a lot of this law enforcement activities on the reservation. So, there’s a lot of communication and collaboration, but they just feel that the wall is is unnecessary in stopping that.
LAUREN GILGER: Right. They’ve already seen such a drop. And it’s such a unique situation, Gabe. In the last minute or so here, tell us about what this says or means about tribal sovereignty more generally, right? I’m sure that is a a conversation that’s going to be a part of this.
GABRIEL PIETRORAZIO: For sure. I think that the question of sovereignty of whether the nation has a right to say that, "Hey, our lands are our own and that the federal government cannot do anything on them," will be at the core of the the question of whether this preliminary injunction will be issued and granted, essentially.
And we had seen that some of the sacred sites like Las Playas and Taglio, which are ancestral lands that are not on the reservation, were not respected, and there’s concern that there are spots here on the reservation that they need to protect. As Chairman Jose told me, there’s places that they can’t even tell the federal government because they’re that sacred and important, that we can’t show people or document it in a way because we have to protect those resources.
So, in summary, I think what we’re seeing is a real challenge here of whether the federal government will uphold the sovereignty and the rights of the Tohono O’odham Nation to preserve its boundaries.
LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. All right. Lots of eyes on this case, I’m sure. All right, KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio joining us, covers Indigenous affairs for us. Gabe, thanks so much. Appreciate it.
GABRIEL PIETRORAZIO: Thanks for having me.
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