Celebrated as “a pristine example of an intact Sonoran Desert ecosystem,” Organ Pipe was designated as a UNESCO International Biosphere Reserve in 1976. Even before the explosions began, the construction there was already one of Trump’s most controversial border wall projects, unfolding on the homelands of the Tohono O’odham and in areas that are ostensibly safeguarded by the strictest public-land designations on the books.
Neither factor has stopped contractors from drilling into the ground and draining water from a rare desert aquifer in order to mix concrete to support a towering, 30-foot barrier along the U.S.-Mexico divide. In working to fulfill the president’s chief campaign promise, construction crews on Organ Pipe have uprooted saguaro cacti, slicing the iconic plants into chunks and bulldozed a wide roadway to make room for trucks, cranes, and other construction vehicles.
The construction is particularly threatening to Quitobaquito Springs, the only naturally occurring source of fresh water for miles around. The desert oasis was once inhabited by the Hia Ced O’odham — a smaller, though distinct O’odham tribe — and remains a monumentally important spiritual site for the O’odham people to this day.
Accompanying Grijalva’s complaint was a letter from Ned Norris Jr., chair of the Tohono O’odham Nation, to the U.S. Border Patrol, in which Norris reported that border wall construction on Organ Pipe had already “resulted in the inadvertent discovery of human remains” near Quitobaquito Springs.
So yes, they’ve already damaging Native American remains. So, no… not fake news. I doubt they will change course, just because there are some bodies under the ground. They are claiming wide privileges here that no one is interested in reigning in, and as a result sacred sites and historically significant sites are being destroyed.
I think everyone’s missing the point here. I mean, yes, this might be crass, ugly, a bit illegal, performatively cruel, irreversibly harmful to cultural and natural treasures etc.
But can you even imagine the value of a partly-completed ineffectual right-wing vanity wall? That thing is just going to bring benefit upon benefit, each benefit more real and possible-to-name than the last. I can’t even begin to describe the benefits. It’s so, so smart.
Maybe you should go back to 1907 and blame Teddy Roosevelt:
"Known as the Roosevelt Reservation, the easement was established in 1907 by President Theodore Roosevelt to keep the border “free from obstruction as a protection against the smuggling of goods” between the United States and Mexico, according to the original proclamation.”
De Leon said Tuesday that the Park Service was working with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection “to voluntarily initiate processes drawn from the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act” to repatriate the bone fragment believed to be human with the Tohono O’odham Nation.
While the Act, adopted in 1990, mandates that federal agencies follow a specific process for returning human remains or cultural items to tribal cultures, Homeland Security received a waiver from following “all legal requirements” in connection with the border wall’s construction.
Rep. Grijalva last week wrote Chad F. Wolf, the acting secretary of the Homeland Security Department, to complain about how the agency’s intrusions on tribal sites as border wall construction progressed.
The Arizona Democrat acknowledged that the REAL ID Act of 2005 gave the Homeland Security secretary waivers from following many laws in its work, such as tribal consultation, when working on the border wall, he nevertheless argued that “(T)his broad, sweeping authority provisioned to a single member of the executive branch has been highly debated and even deemed unconstitutional.”
“… This administration continues to use waiver authority at an unprecedented and irresponsible rate; of the 21 times the waiver has been enacted since 2005, 16 of those instances have occurred in the last two and a half years,” the congressman said. “Using this waiver to avoid essential federal government responsibilities to tribes is unnecessary, reckless, and counter to the Department’s own policy.”
Believe whatever you want, dude… you’re still wrong. it’s not fake news, it’s pretty much trashing of our national heritage, and of Native rights and heritage.
Let’s blame the people who are committing these acts right now, just so they can get an ineffective wall up before the election, so they can say they did something.
Every cactus bulldozed and Native American grave disturbed is one more stick of dynamite going into the basement of Trump tower after the Democratically controlled Congress declares eminent domain on all Trump properties to build homeless shelters and women’s centers. I’m keeping count so that we get the demolition perfectly right when the time comes.
OK I appreciate and acknowledge all of this. (snark aside )
But if there are laws, even with waivers, can these not be challenged in the courts? Not a lawyer, but what about a local tribe suing for the protection and relocation of any remains? Or some other check that appeals the waiver decision.
Maybe there is none, but the government does love redundancies and so it seems to me there should be some ability to delay or properly handle this.
Don’t evoke Teddy. If ghosts were real he would smack that fake tan off of him for what he is doing to the National Parks system.
A vengeful TR spirit would eviscerate every president in the last 40 years for encouraging monopolies and trusts to take over our economy and capture our government. Maybe he’d spare Carter. Maybe.
Then he’d piss on half of their corpses over the destruction and privatization of National Parks.
Of course, and sometimes this has worked to uphold the rule of law under this president, but he’s also stacking the courts with far right judges… And now the independence of the justice department is questionable under Barr.
Again, yes. But the US does not have a great track record under the most sensitive of presidents in supporting indigenous rights. This administration would gladly trample any treaty if it gave them an opportunity to have a “win” like getting their horrible wall up.
I heard an NPR story this morning about Texas landowners suing because the wall will run somewhat north of the true border formed by the Rio Grande. Some of their properties will be cut in half, but if they accept a hefty gov’t fee they’ll be given an access code to a security gate so they can reach their fishing shacks or farmlands or the other 15 golf-course holes. CBP promises to patrol “both sides” of the wall…that is, landowners will have to suffer armed military presence at not one but two locations on their property. What could possibly go wrong? Perhaps this suit has a better chance than the indigenous peoples’ rights, & might create a wedge. Some of the interviewees said they’re just trying to drag the process out until November. But of course that will be too late for the burial grounds that have already been violated.
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