At Quitobaquito, O’odham chair says tribe set to cite border wall contractors for trespassing

On the banks of Quitobaquito Springs on Monday, U.S. Rep. Adelita Grijalva stood with leaders of the Tohono O’odham Nation and called for a halt to border wall construction, adding she would introduce legislation to rescind Homeland Security’s “sweeping authority” to suspend federal laws for the effort.

Verlon Jose, chairman of the Tohono O’odham Nation and
Carla Johnson, the nation’s vice chair, joined Grijlava and spoke to reporters, along with
Lorraine Marquez Eiler, an Hia-Ced O’odham elder.

“This is not just a border construction project,” said Grijalva. “This is about tribal sovereignty.”

Earlier this month, tribal officials installed “no trespassing” signs aimed at border wall contractors.

“If
they’re coming on as a sovereign nation, a nation of laws and rules and
policy,” Jose said, adding if contractors come without following the
nation’s permitting processes “they are trespassing. And we will not
stand for that.”

He said O’odham police officers and rangers
escorted contractors out of tribal lands seven times since they
installed the signs, and if the contractors persist in coming, they will
be cited.

“Our message to the Trump administration that a wall is
not necessary,” he said “If you take a look at history and look at
walls around the world, tell me if they’ve been 100 percent effective.”

“Why
did we build a first wall? Why are we building a second? Obviously, the
first wall didn’t work,” he said. “We tried to tell you already that it
won’t work, and for all the intended purposes, we have a lot of other
tools out there we could be use that would not destroy the land.”

About 120 miles southwest of Tucson, Quitobaquito Springs is a desert oasis fed by a tiny hidden crack in
the mountains, where a thin stream—now lined with concrete—slips through
a complex of mesquites and other trees before filling the pond. From
the air, the pond remains a turquoise jewel surrounded by the largely
stark desert of Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, and is an important
cultural touchstone for both the Hia-Ced O’odham and Tohono O’odham
people, and hosts three endangered species.

Grijlava said tribal officials tried to work with Homeland Security officials and objected to the construction of a new border wall across the nation’s 62-mile border with Mexico, however in recent weeks, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has laid the groundwork for the project, prompting a federal lawsuit by the Tohono O’odham Nation.

Currently, the Tohono O’odham Nation is separated from Mexico by
bollards that are four feet high, topped with metal struts. The new wall
planned by CBP would include a 30-foot high primary wall with six-inch
thick “bollards” separated by four-inch gaps. The bollard are sunk into
concrete footers and topped “anti-climb” steel panels.

In June, CBP awarded the project — dubbed Tucson 5 Project — to SLSCO LTD, a Texas-based construction company, backed by nearly $47 million in funding from Congress authorized last year.

Along with the barriers, the agency plans to add patrol roads, cameras, lights and other surveillance technology to “tie it all together.”

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

“DHS cannot unilaterally shrink or alter the boundaries of a sovereign tribal nation,” Grijalva said. “Those boundaries were established by Congress. They cannot simply be changed because an administration wants to build another wall.”

CBP—which operates under DHS—has ramped up border
wall construction across much of Southern Arizona this year, prompting
widespread outcry and protests. Along with the project along the reservation’s border with Mexico, the agency also has sought to build 45.4 miles of secondary border wall across the southern
edge of the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument within a few hundred
feet of the springs—a place considered sacred by Hia-Ced O’odham, and
home to three endangered species.

In May, border wall contractors seriously damaged the Las Playas Intaglio, a well-documented cultural artifact in a remote section of the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge, and the tribe says the agency’s plans for future border wall construction threaten

“We have already seen the consequences,” Grijalva said. “This is not something we can dismiss as a minor accident or an oversight—this is what happens when you rush forward with a second wasteful border wall without adequate consultation, without respecting cultural and sacred resources. Quitobaquito Springs could be next.”

Eiler told the Tucson Sentinel in July she believed the destruction was deliberate—an idea shared by other members of the Hia-Ced O’odham.

Jose said he met with Trump administration officials, including
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, CBP Commissioner Rodney
Scott, and the head of the Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector—which covers
Arizona from the Yuma County line to the New Mexico border.

He
called these meetings “dog and pony shows,” adding that while officials
came to the table, they insisted on a wall. Jose said he spoke to
Scott.

“I said, ‘I have a hard line. I know your hard line is
to build a wall.’ We’ll have a heart line too, and that’s to oppose a
wall until our tribal resolution changes, those are our orders,” Jose
said.

‘Unchecked authority’

Grijalva said she was preparing to send a letter to Trump administration officials demanding a halt to border wall construction across the tribe’s lands, including at Quitobaquito until DHS consulted with the tribe. And, she said she would introduce legislation “to rescind DHS’s sweeping authority to waive the very laws that are supposed to protect these communities, tribal lands, cultural resources, endangered species, the environment, and our public health.”

The Clinton-era Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, allows the federal government to “waive all legal requirements” to ensure expeditious construction of border barriers. This law, and the 2005 REAL ID Act, effectively allows the DHS secretary to issue waivers and ignore nearly three dozen federal laws—including the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Air Act, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, and the Safe Drinking Water Act.

Waivers were used sparingly during the Bush and Obama administrations, but Trump’s officials have issued dozens of waivers to build border barriers across the U.S.

“DHS should not have unchecked authority to simply waive laws that stand in the way of building a wall faster,” Grijalva said.

“People who live along the southwest border and tribal nations whose lands have been directly affected deserve the same legal protections as everyone else in this country,” Grijalva added. “If DHS is serious about strengthening our border, then let’s invest in what actually makes our border more secure. Let’s modernize our ports of entry. Let’s put more personnel where it’s needed. Let’s invest in modern technology and infrastructure.”

“We should not be pouring billions of taxpayer dollars into a second unnecessary wall that does nothing to actually enhance security, simply for political symbolism,” Grijalva added. “We can protect our communities without destroying the history and cultural resources of the people who called this land home for generations. The federal government should not be steamrolling the Tohono O’odham Nation.”

‘I would never go into your cemeteries and blow them up’

The O’odham border with Mexico is the second-longest international border of any Native American reservation in the United States, and the longest along the border with Mexico.

Tohono O’odham officials have regularly campaigned against erecting a wall on tribal lands — including joining lawsuits and urging Congress to hold back on construction, while pushing for help from local officials. During the first Trump administration, the nation released a video opposing the wall.

Earlier this year, tribal officials said the Trump administration was moving to build on the nation, part of a larger plan to install barriers across 1,419 miles of the 1,954-mile border—which includes a “double-layer” wall as well as roads, lighting and other infrastructure. A wall would effectively cut the tribe’s lands — which extend across the border — in half, Jose said in June.

“These are our ceremonial sites,” Jose said Monday. “Some people go into big buildings to gather and pray to their creator,” he said, but for his people, the land itself matters. “Because that is how we’re taught: to respect the land, and to respect the people.”

He noted that federal officials have taken tribal lands to create both Organ Pipe and the neighboring Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge because they believed it should be protected.

He described Quitobaquito Springs as an oasis that fed people as they walked or made multi-day ceremonial runs through the desert, comparing the watering hole to a modern day convenience store.

“Other people came from here for survival,” he said. “Maybe we could have chased them away. Maybe we should have built a wall back then and made it for ourselves. But this is not ours to own,” Jose said. “This is ours to protect.”

He called the fight against the border wall, a “struggle.”

“I would never go into your cemeteries and blow them up,” he said, adding that’s exactly what has happened to the O’odham. “It’s exactly what’s going to happen to us again to destroy this sacred place, this place of worship. I thought religion was protected. Is my religion not good enough, or my practice is not good enough?”

Jose said federal officials used explosives to clear Monument Hill—several miles to the east of Quitobaquito—and this disturbed grave sites. At the time, federal officials said monitors did not find cultural artifacts or remains, and the explosives were used for footers to build the 30-foot wall.

Jose asked if the federal government would treat Arlington National Cemetery the same way.

“I mean that no disrespect to the veterans that are there, but these are our warriors that are buried here. These are our people that are buried here. They may not have names, they may not have titles, they may not have markers, but they protect this land,” he said.

During the first Trump administration, border wall contractors installed a 30-foot wall along the southern edge of the protected landscape, using millions of gallons of water to make the concrete footers, as well as drainage systems and the bases for stadium-style flood lights. The effort drained the aquifer that supports Quitobaquito, and there were signs the concrete liner beneath the pond was damaged by the construction.

In recent months, the oasis has clearly returned, but researchers. community members, and environmental groups continue to worry about the spring’s future with another, closer border barrier.

On July 30, community members celebrated Quitobaquito as part of a weekend of events centered around protecting the watering hole.

Jose said Native Americans, including the Tohono O’odham, have “always stood up to protect this country, but we will not stand up and allow a wall to be built on our sacred land—on our 62 miles of reservation. Our aboriginal lands go far and beyond what the reservation is now, He said. “And my message to the Trump administration is: stop this wall from being built now and forever.”

Vehicles driven by members of the Tohono O’odham Nation and Spanish-language media drive along the border road east of Quitobaquito Springs.

‘A scary precedent’

Driving out from Quitobaquito Springs on Monday, Vice Chair Johnson headed along the border road and drove past a stretch of the protected landscape where heavy equipment had scraped the land clean far past the edge of the federally claimed Roosevelt Reservation.

On Monday, the National Park Service reopened the roads to Quitobaquito,
Johnson said. However, NPS had yet to update the webpage for Organ
Pipe, and continued to show the road closure.

Eiler said communication between the tribe and federal officials has been inconsistent, and while NPS officials said that tribal members could continue visiting Quitobaquito during the road closure, they had to ask permission.

“I’m still I’m still unsure,” Eiler told reporters, as she sat the front seat of Johnson’s SUV.

“And not knowing what’s going to happen brings up probably worse thoughts and ideas than it would normally be if we were informed what’s going to happen,” Eiler said. “And since we’re not informed, we expect the worst.” She worried the tribe could lose the springs.

“It’s still not going to keep people out. That border wall certainly didn’t keep people out before,” she said. “It’s not going to stop. So it’s just devastation of an area that’s supposed to be protected.”

Quitobaquito has been important to the Hia-Ced O’odham for centuries, and as noted ecologist Gary Paul Nahban wrote earlier this summer, the spring may have been the site of the first Palm Sunday celebration in Arizona, where O’odham elders “invited Padre Kino to bless them with palm fronds, just as they blessed their own with sprigs of cotton, willow, and creosote in their ceremonies.”

Johnson called the planned construction on the tribe’s lands “a scary precedent for Indian country” because it could mean the federal government could “just swoop in and do whatever they want—including diminishing a reservation, and waiving certain protected laws and regulations.”

As she passed the construction site, she called an eyesore. “It’s it’s not going to keep anything out,” Johnson said, gesturing to the 30-foot high barrier that rose into the sky on her right. “If the first one didn’t work, surely a second one will work. Sure.”

Lorraine Marquez Eiler during a public meeting in Ajo, Ariz.

‘A slap in the face’

A few hours later in Ajo, about 31 miles north of Quitobaquito Springs, around 120 people gathered at the Ajo Plaza Rec Hall for a “border wall town hall” featuring Grijalva, Jose and Johnson. Several people spoke about their frustration with the second border wall project near Quitobaquito and the project slated to begin on the Tohono O’odham Nation.

Myles Traphagen, a science writer for Cuenca Los Ojos— a bi-national conservation group based in Southern Arizona and Mexico— told the crowd Congress has “absolutely has lost its mind” when they allocated a “staggering amount of money” for border wall construction.

Traphagen said he went to another border wall project near Sasabe, Ariz. about 100 miles to the east, and found chiltepin peppers growing in a cave tucked into Cerro del Fresnal, or Fresnal Peak.

“There’s a population there, and they’re the small survivors. It’s not all about the jaguar and charismatic species. The chiltepin represents the people, that connection. Those were brought there; they are not naturally there.”

“I wanted to go visit that population,” he said because CBP contractors are getting “ready to blast through that mountain.”

He compared the $47 billion for border wall construction, along with
another $18 billion from a previous bill to other projects.

“That is
four times the cost of the Panama Canal,” he said, and the cost of every
aircraft carrier built from World War II, Korea and Vietnam.

“The
wall doesn’t get us water. It doesn’t get us minerals. It
doesn’t actually provide security, but it’s a staggering sum of money,”
he said. “And I think that Congress has lost its mind. And if there is
ever a
fiscal conservative, I’d like to see one.”

David Ortega, a member of the Hia-Ced O’odham, said his people needs support.

“We need support, not politicians. They can talk. Let them talk. Let them do what they do. While this is being desecrated, they’re not seeing what we see,” he said.

“We’re not afraid of who is on the other side because they’re us,” said Sara Mae Williams, a member of the Tohono O’odham tribe and a Pima County justice of the peace in Ajo.

As the forum came to a close, Eiler called the new border wall a “slap in the face” to her ancestors. She said while people have focused on the water issues and the endangered species that live in the spring, “that’s just the tip of the iceberg.”

She reminded the crowd her grandparents lived at Quitobaquito, adding people have lived around the springs for 6,000 years, enduring against the elements.

Eiler concluded, telling the crowd protections were given to the La Lomita Chapel in South Texas and the Mount Cristo de Rey shrine on the Texas-New Mexico Chihuahua border, but she asked why those protections haven’t been extended to Quitobaquito Springs.

“Why not? It’s our chapel where we go and worship and have ceremonies, and so that’s my question. Why not?” Eiler said.

Contruction equipment along Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument

‘The same due diligence’

Joined by congressional Democrats Raul Ruiz, Veronica Escobar, and Juan Vargas, Grijalva sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum asking to hold up on border wall construction until officials engaged in “meaningful government-to-government consultation” with members of the Tohono O’odham Nation.

They also asked for a “full accounting” of the project’s impact on tribal lands, including cultural resources and communities.

“We are deeply concerned by federal government’s failure to meaningfully consult with tribal nations regarding projects that may impact sacred sites, cultural resources, and ancestral homelands,” wrote the congressional representatives.

Ruiz and Vargas represent California’s two border districts.Vargas’ DC 52 runs from the coast line to Ruiz’s CD 25, which includes the southeast corner of the state and borders the Colorado River. Escobar represents CD 16 in Texas, which covers the western tip of Texas, and includes El Paso.

“We acknowledge and appreciate that CBP has paused construction at Big Bend National Park to conduct additional consultation with local stakeholders. We are simply asking that the same due diligence be taken at all tribal borderlands, given that construction would cross sovereign and sacred ancestral lands,” they wrote.

“The federal government has a legal trust responsibility to tribal nations that cannot be treated as an afterthought in the pursuit of border infrastructure projects. Yet recent events raise serious questions whether DHS and DOI are fulfilling its obligations to consult with tribal governments before construction decisions are made,” they wrote.

In the letter Grijalva and the other representatives referred to the damage done to the Las Playas Intaglio. She said while Burgum said his agency apologized for the damage, “an apology offered after a sacred site has been destroyed neither fulfills the federal government’s trust responsibility nor substitutes for meaningful consultation before decisions are made.”

“The destruction of the Las Playas Intaglio was not an isolated incident. Border wall construction has repeatedly threatened culturally significant sites throughout the borderlands and has generated longstanding concerns from tribal nations.”

“The Tohono O’odham Nation has consistently emphasized that consultation must occur before routes are selected, before construction plans are finalized, and before ground is broken,” they wrote.

On Tuesday, CBP released a statement attributed to Commissioner Rodney Scott that said the
agency is “moving forward with a 62-mile project to close a
longstanding border security gap in Southern Arizona, known as the
Tucson 5 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.”

The court did not “affirm” the border wall project, nor dismiss the tribe’s lawsuit. Instead, a federal judge denied the nation’s request for a preliminary injunction, halting construction efforts while the lawsuit moved forward.