CBP relationship with Tohono O’odham Nation frays as border wall project moves ahead

In the distance, a rolling hill named Horse Peak rises past the last stretch of drivable road along the Tohono O’odham Nation’s 62-mile border with Mexico. For Verlon Jose, the chairman of the Tohono O’odham Nation, Horse Peak is central to his family and their ancestors, but in the coming months, Horse Peak will be cut through to build a new border wall.

“They’re gonna have to dynamite this place before they can start bringing in their heavy equipment to make a road,” Jose said Thursday. “And to make a way for a wall or a double wall. Let’s just say they agree to just build one wall. They’re still gonna have to destroy this mountain. They’re gonna have to destroy the sacred sites. They’re gonna have to destroy history.”

On Thursday, Jose and other tribal leaders, including Vice Chair Carla Johnson took reporters on tour of the nation’s shared border with Mexico, driving from the Baboquivari Mountains—the nation’s eastern boundary—to the prayer camp at the San Miguel gate, and finally to Horse Peak.

From that hill, border wall construction would continue for another 45 miles, eventually linking up with border wall construction projects on the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument and Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge.

The project is part of an expansive effort to build barriers along the entire Southwestern border. In Arizona, contractors are already rushing to install both “primary” and “secondary” barriers, including near Kino Springs, just east of Nogales, and in the San Rafael Valley, where contractors tore down three ancient cottonwoods to clear the way.

A significant part of this effort has fallen on the Tohono O’odham Nation and its people.

In May contractors seriously damaged the Las Playas Intaglio, a well-documented cultural artifact while clearing land for a secondary border wall in the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge. And, last week, contractors began clearing land in Organ Pipe near Quitobaquito Springs — a Southern Arizona desert oasis sacred to the Hia-Ced O’odham, and a haven for three endangered species.

“I was talking about this mountain when we’re coming up here, and how important it is, especially to my family, and the songs and the stories that are about this that are not written, that you can’t go to the public library to learn about this, but they’re embedded in us through our oral tradition,” Jose said.

“We know about them because they’ve been shared from generation to generation to generation,” he said. “And when you tear apart this, you’re tearing apart my family.”

‘Forked tongue’

CBP’s relentless drive to install the border wall despite tribal opposition has seriously damaged the tribe’s relationship to the agency. Jose said he doesn’t believe CBP officials who have said they’re only seeking to install the primary wall because previously the agency said they would seek automation and surveillance to observe the border.

Along the border, dozens of ocotillo and saguaros are marked with silver tags—each one a sign the plants will be either transplanted or removed to clear the way for the border wall. The removal of the saguaros remains especially galling because the tribal council recognized the gargantuan cacti as people in 2021.

With a vehicle barrier behind him at the foothills of the Baboquivari Mountains, Jose compared the agency’s actions under Trump to previous eras when Border Patrol officials were willing to negotiate with the tribe about their and installation. While the vehicle barrier looks consistent from the air, there are multiple types—including the Normandy barriers, post on rail, corral-style fencing, and bollards.

Jose said the bollards plunge 8-to-10 feet into the ground and are filled with concrete, but the tribe asked for Normandy barriers because they wanted to protect “sensitive” areas on tribal land. As he drives along the wall, he points out spots where the border wall also zig-zags, leaving certain spots untouched by construction.

This was part of a larger set of negotiations between the tribe and U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials as the agency moved to set up forward-operating bases and 11 surveillance towers, or Integrated Fixed Towers. The agency also received permission to draw water from a tribal well for the forward-operating base about two miles north of the San Miguel gate.

That changed, he said, because of the president. “He made a promise to his voters, and Trump won, and he wants to follow through.”

In February, Tohono O’odham leaders warned the Trump administration was moving to build a wall along the tribe’s 62-mile border with Mexico, part of a larger plan by the Department of Homeland Security to build a so-called “Smart Wall” across 1,419 miles of the 1,954-mile border.

At the time, Jose said a wall would effectively cut the tribe’s lands in half, leaving about 3,000 of their 37,000 enrolled members stuck in Mexico.

By the summer, the agency’s plans became clear and the O’odham filed suit, asking a federal judge to issue a preliminary injunction against the Department of Homeland Security, and block construction and “pre-construction” activities for a so-called “Smart Wall” along the reservation’s 62-mile border with Mexico.

As part of the lawsuit, members of the tribe argued the border wall project would “unilaterally alter” their boundaries and result in the destruction of sacred mountain ranges such as the Baboquivari Mountain — the home of the creator god I’itoi — separate O’odham communities and families, interfere with religious rituals and destroy sacred plant and wildlife populations, Courthouse News reported.

Trump administration officials argued they could build the wall because it sits in the 60-foot wide easement known as the Roosevelt Reservation. However, attorneys for the tribe said the Tohono O’odham Nation was recognized by Congress and the installation of a border wall, especially a secondary barrier and patrol roads, would diminish the nation.

After the lawsuit was filed, CBP awarded the project — dubbed Tucson 5 Project — to SLSCO LTD, a Texas construction company, backed by nearly $47 million in funding from Congress authorized last year.

CBP officials told the court a secondary wall was not part of the award to SLSCO, but this was an “option.” The agency also told the court construction won’t likely begin until Oct. 12, 2026.

A judge in Washington D.C. refused to grant the injunction last month, and the tribe asked to fast-track their case with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals last week.

While the case moved forward, contractors began arriving on the nation’s lands for geotechnical surveys leading to a standoff after Border Patrol agents blocked Tohono O’odham Police Department officers and rangers to keep them from citing or attempting to remove the contractors.

CBP officials have continually refused to answer questions from the Tucson Sentinel about border wall construction, but have instead referred to a statement from Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott, which said the agency was “moving ahead” with the project.

“The project will close one of the most dangerous smuggling and trafficking corridors on the Southwest border: remote desert that has facilitated decades of drug loads, migrant deaths, and cartel activity,” Scott said. “Congress funded this work, a federal court has affirmed it, and CBP is carrying it out under the legal authorities that apply. Under President Trump’s leadership, we are securing the border and giving our agents the tools and support they need to protect the American people.”

In fact, the court did not “affirm” the border wall project, nor dismiss the tribe’s lawsuit. Rather, the judge rejected their request for a preliminary injunction.

The tribe’s attorney Riyaz A. Kanji told the appellate court “there is no question that the [Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullins] and his contractors will need to trespass on the nation’s lands to carry out the construction of the border wall on the Nation’s Reservation—indeed, they already have, and show every intention of continuing.”

As part of his filing, Kanji noted that within hours of Leon’s decision, James Percival, the general counsel for Homeland Security, wrote on social media that “this wall is getting built.”

“We respect tribal sovereignty but not to the detriment of border security. This wall is getting built. Our authority is beyond dispute,” Percival wrote. Attached to his post was a meme that said “RESISTANCE IS FUTILE.”

Over two days in August at least 11 contractors arrived on the reservation, and they operated their vehicles beyond the 60-foot easement, Kanji wrote. Further, he told the court that even if contractors stuck to the easement “there are no means by which contractors can access the border through the reservation without using private roads to which the federal government does not have a right-of-way agreement.”

CBP’s request for proposal sought the installation of “two walls, lights, roads, the whole shebang,” Jose told reporters. However, after the proposal was released, Scott told tribal leaders the agency plans to build just one 30-foot wall.

“I don’t believe a word they say,” Jose said.

“How many times have I heard your forked tongue? How many times has the U.S. government told us something, and went against that? I don’t have to tell you,” he said. “History can tell you for itself how many times they told us something and did the complete opposite. So we don’t trust anybody. Trust is something that is proven by your actions.”

He said while the agency is driving hard to build new barriers, apprehensions have collapsed, dropping by nearly 95 percent and Trump administration officials have repeatedly said they have operational control of the border. He added that CBP officials warned that after building barriers to the west and east of the nation, they would face a “funnel effect” where people tried to push through tribal land. “That didn’t happen,” Jose said.

He was also frustrated that plans are moving ahead on O’odham land, even while a project near Big Bend National Park in Texas was put on hold after widespread opposition.

“Everything they’re saying they’ll do in Texas, they’re already doing here,” he said. “Why is it so different here? Is it because they look at us as second-class citizens. Or not as citizens at all?”

Jose called the border wall a “political stunt” and said the U.S. would be better off if the Trump administration used the funding to help Americans “kick their drug habit,” and reduce the demand for drugs like fentanyl, which largely arrive in the U.S. through legal border crossings.

“We’re spending billions and billions of dollars on this wall. Why don’t we build rehabilitation centers?” Jose said. “Whenever there’s demand, there’s going to be supply.”

He said he hoped Democrats will take control of Congress in November, and pass comprehensive immigration reform. “We want this to stop,” he said. “They’re trying to erase the Native Americans from this country. Not on our watch.”

He also criticized people who arrived on the nation to film or photograph the border wall and CBP’s actions without permission—an oblique reference to Daniel Butierez, the Republican candidate for Arizona’s Congressional District 7.

He said there are ceremonies that should not be recorded. “It’s not for the public eye. Would you like for me to go and photograph your children? Would you like for me to go and photograph you walking in your backyard? Would you like for me to go and photograph your cemetery?”

On Aug. 29, the tribe said Butierez was part of a livestream production on the Tohono O’odham Nation without permission. “This candidate and his associates were reportedly engaged in derogatory and disrespectful comments about the nation and its members.”

Butierez called the accusations false and said he “never said anything of the sorts.”

“It personally hurts me because my stepchildren are members of the tribe. I have friends who are members,” he said on a social media post where he asked for chance to chat with Jose.

Jose referred to CBP’s actions during border wall construction in the nearby Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument when contractors used explosives to carve into Monument Hill near Lukeville, Arizona in February 2020.

Officials “knew” there were burial sites there, “and they still blew through that whole mountain,” Jose said. “You know what our people had to do? They had to go out there and collect pieces of bones that they saw out there. 
How would you like to go and pick pieces of your family up?”

“That is so sad, and so disrespectful, and it’s traumatizing,” he said. “The judge said there was no irreparable harm. The irreparable harm has already been done— since they created it, right here. 
We see no border.”

‘What weight does that hold?’

On the border road, Carla Johnson, the nation’s vice chair, said Border Patrol had proposed to install a linear ground detection system, which relies on buried fiber optic cables to detect people coming close to the border.

She said the tribe’s leadership were working to convince their members about the system, and preparing for public hearings when that effort “abruptly stopped.”

“We’re trying to have faith on the legal side of things, to try to get these things moving and letting our lawyers do some work,” she said. “We’re bracing because we know they’re [building the wall] if we don’t have an injunction.”

Johnson added that the destruction of the Las Playas Intaglio earlier this year set a benchmark for DHS’s behavior. She said cultural monitors were attached to the border wall project in Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge, and yet, a contractor seriously damaged the cultural artifact.

She also dismissed an apology from Commissioner Scott. “What weight does that hold?”

“That is move the benchmark, from respect to complete disrespect of our land,” Johnson said.

She said they’re hoping for a change in Congress that might pull back the large-scale border wall construction, but in the meantime, they will keep monitoring and praying.

“We’re real believers in prayers, and trying to hold that that fire—figuratively and literally—as you see, to make sure that we keep that light,” Johnson said.

Fire Keepers

At the San Miguel gate, a group of tribal member, or fire keepers have been maintaining a prayer camp and vigil since contractors began arriving on the Tohono O’odham Nation.

Since Aug. 25, members have endured heat and monsoon storms to maintain the fire and a thatch of smoldering creosote to create a space to share tribal knowledge and traditions, while keeping an eye on the border wall contractors. The contractors left on Aug. 29, Jose said.

Amy Juan told reporters about her upbringing on tribal lands with her grandfather, a rancher and cowboy, when the U.S.-Mexico border was marked only by barbed wire and a cattle guard at the San Miguel gate.

“We have this generation of young O’odham who don’t know their family history, or the history of the borderlands because we’ve been in in some ways displaced from it,” Juan said. “We predate the existence of the United States and Mexico, and we know that. We’re proud of that. Basically that’s what we’re protecting.”

She said her cousins don’t remember the days before the barriers were added, and before “militarization” surged on O’odham lands.

“Now it’s our responsibility, my generation, 40-year-olds who remember the times before Border Patrol, now it’s our responsibility to share those memories and share those teachings with the young generations and also to encourage our elders who are still here to share those stories,” Juan said.

“We are an observation point, observing their activity out here,” Juan said. “It’s our our duty, you know, our responsibility to the people and to our land, and especially to the future of our children.”

“We’re all bearing witness, no matter what happens,” she said. “So, we’re able to tell our own story just as we always have. Whether through our old stories— and now going into our living history of new stories—what’s happening, and what’s taking place in O’odham history.”

Jose said the San Miguel gate is one of three traditional crossings CBP has allowed along the nation, allowing tribal members to cross back-and-forth. The gate is covered by cameras and a Border Patrol agent can be called to open the gate. Jose told reporters these are critical to tribal members who live in Mexico, he said Scott warned that a lawsuit could mean the loss of the “courtesy gates.”

“I take that as a threat,” Jose said.

Jose told reporters he urged tribal members to avoid escalating the situation or putting themselves in danger. But he said the situation will change when contractors return and construction begins in earnest.

“Once we start seeing ground being pushed, once we start seeing heavy machinery rolling, I kid you not, that’s gonna be a game-changer,” he said. On what that means, Jose demurred. “Don’t ask me what, because I’m not going to tell you.”

In his request for an expedited hearing, the tribe’s attorney Kanji said they expected construction could begin by October 12 despite the tribe’s “strenuous objections” to preparation work, and Mullin told Congress the primary border wall could be completed along the entire length of the border by June 2027.

Jose said CBP officials told him they would return in October to break ground, but he thinks they’ll arrive earlier and attempt to catch tribal members off-guard.

“My thoughts are that they’re out there strategizing to try to come full force. With everything they got,” Jose said.