Arizona tribe refuses Trump's wall, but agrees to let Border Patrol build virtual barrier

Molly Hennessy-Fiske

TOHONO O'ODHAM NATION, Ariz. - Verlon Jose had long vowed President Donald Trump would build a wall along his tribe's 75-mile border with Mexico only "over my dead body." But late last month, the Tohono O'odham Nation's vice chairman stood at the border and praised a planned wall meant to deter migrants, smugglers - and, according to the tribe, federal agents - from disturbing its lands. The wall he described was not physical, but virtual: 10 towers up to 140 feet tall, with radar and night vision cameras capable of surveying over several miles and streaming footage around the clock to the Border Patrol. "The idea is to reduce the footprint of these guys running around, tearing up our land," Jose said of agents patrolling the reservation. The integrated fixed towers, or IFTs, as the Border Patrol calls them, were approved in March by a unanimous vote of the tribe's legislative council, many of them older tribal members. But some younger members oppose the towers, fearing that their elders had sacrificed hard-won sovereignty. "We're going to inherit this problem," said Amy Juan, 33. "It is our hope the IFTs will decrease the flow of illegal trafficking and thus the need for such a large Border Patrol presence on the nation," said tribal Chairman Edward Manuel. He emphasized that his people remain firmly against a wall. "The nation will never support a fortified wall on the border, which would divide our people, devastate the environment and destroy sacred sites, all while failing to halt the flow of migrants and smugglers," he said. The Tohono O'odham Nation reservation once stretched 350 miles from Phoenix to Hermosillo, Mexico. But Mexico never recognized the tribe's claims to land. The reservation the U.S. government created in 1917 now covers 2.8 million acres. Half of the tribe's 34,000 members live on the reservation, which has its own language, schools, police and a government comprising 11 legislative districts. The border here is an expansive basin between mountains the tribe considers sacred. To the east looms the 8,000-foot granite Baboquivari Peak - the name means "neck between two heads" in the Tohono O'odham language, and tribal members believe the mountain to be the spiritual home of their creator, l'itoi. It can take the nation's 87 tribal police several hours to respond to 911 calls - often related to drug and human smuggling - in remote border villages. "Some of these ranchers are getting broken into constantly," said tribal Police Chief Elton Begay. Tribal police spend more than half their time assisting federal agents and doing other border-related enforcement, Begay said, and the nation spends $3 million annually on border security. Hundreds of Border Patrol agents and a federally funded team of more than a dozen Native American smuggling trackers called Shadow Wolves patrol the border and reservation. Two years ago, the agency released a study that said tower construction wouldn't cause archaeological, environmental or community harm. It held community forums and took tribal members on field trips to inspect smaller tower systems near the reservation. It decreased the number of proposed towers in Gu Vo district and redesigned the towers' bases so they didn't extend underground. Border Patrol officials also promised to improve rutted dirt roads leading to the towers and said they would consider adding hardware that would boost cellphone and police radio reception...MORE