The Tohono O’odham Nation has filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, seeking to halt the agency’s plans to construct a border wall on the tribe’s reservation lands in southern Arizona. The legal action comes as DHS prepares to issue construction contracts in the coming weeks.
The Nation’s reservation spans 62 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border — a boundary that has divided Tohono O’odham lands and communities since the Gadsden Purchase of 1854. Despite this division, the tribe has for decades been an active partner in federal border security efforts, supporting the installation of vehicle barriers, patrol roads, surveillance towers, and two Border Patrol operating bases on reservation land. For more than two decades, the Nation has also spent millions of dollars annually on its own border security activities.
According to the Nation, those cooperative efforts have yielded significant results: unlawful border crossings on the reservation have declined by more than 95% over the past two years — a statistic tribal leaders say demonstrates that a physical wall is unnecessary.
“We have tried to work with the Department on the border wall issue, but it insists on rushing forward with construction,” Tohono O’odham Nation Chairman Verlon Jose said in a statement. “We have been left with no other choice but to file suit to protect our land, our culture, and our rights.”
The lawsuit contends that DHS’s construction plans would illegally diminish the size of the Nation’s reservation, constitute trespassing on tribal land, and violate the tribe’s right to exclusive use of its reservation and resources. The Nation also alleges that construction would destroy sacred sites and interfere with important religious ceremonies and cultural practices.
Tribal leaders say their preference has always been to invest resources into improving the lives of Nation members rather than fighting the federal government in court. Chairman Jose called on DHS to reconsider its approach and instead pursue what he described as “modern border protection measures.”
“If they insist on an illegal wall,” he said, “we will stand up for what is right.”
