Border officials are blowing up a sacred Native American burial site to make way for Trump's border wall
- US border authorities are blowing up a Native American burial ground in Arizona to make way for the construction of President Donald Trump's border wall between the US and Mexico, The Intercept and CBS News reported.
- Contractors began their "controlled blasting" at the Tohono O'odham Nation's burial site, inside Arizona's Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, last week, The Intercept reported.
- Border officials did not consult with the Native American tribe before blowing up their sacred site, CBS News and The Intercept reported.
- "This administration is basically trampling on the tribe's history - and to put it poignantly, its ancestry," Rep. Raúl Grijalva, who represents the district where the burial site is located, told CBS News.
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US border workers are blasting land on a Native American tribe's sacred burial grounds to make way for President Donald Trump's US-Mexico border wall, The Intercept and CBS News reported.
Contractors began their "controlled blasting" at the burial site, where members of the Tohono O'odham Nation buries their ancestors, began last week, The Intercept reported.
The burial site is located inside Arizona's Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, also known as Monument Hill. Archaeologists touring the site prior to construction said they found human remains dating back 10,000 years, CBS News reported.
Officials hope to use that land to build a 30-foot-high steel wall, which will be part of a 43-mile wall along the US' southwest border, the Associated Press reported, citing the Arizona Star.
"The construction contractor has begun controlled blasting, in preparation for new border wall system construction, within the Roosevelt Reservation at Monument Mountain in the US Border Patrol's Tucson Sector," the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said in a statement to The Intercept.
"The controlled blasting is targeted and will continue intermittently for the rest of the month."
However, there has been "no consultation" with the Tohono O'odham Nation whatsoever, Rep. Raúl Grijalva, who represents the district where the burial site is located, told CBS News.
Though the Tohono O'odham Nation's reservation is private land, its burial site is on public land. The site is also part of a UNESCO International Biosphere Reserve, designated in 1976 as one of 325 reserves globally and is a "pristine example of an intact Sonoran Desert ecosystem," according to the National Park Service.
"This administration is basically trampling on the tribe's history - and to put it poignantly, its ancestry," Grijalva told CBS News.
In a Friday letter, Grijalva - who also chairs the House Committee on Natural Resources - called on the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) - which oversees the CBP - to start "government-to government" consultation with the Tohono O'odham nation.
Grijalva warned that there would be both ecological and heritage implications of the construction work being so close to the Quitobaquito springs, one of the only freshwater sources in the reserve.
He also said that current border wall designs will make migration difficult for numerous species that are precious to the Tohono O'odham people, including jaguars, deer, and pronghorn antelope.
CBP told CBS News that it has an "environmental monitor" onsite for the work, but did not offer further detail.
Grijalva also questioned the Trump administration's use of the 2005 REAL ID Act to waive its legal requirement to consult tribal governments. Grijalva claimed in his letter that the DHS is using this power at an "unprecedented and irresponsible rate."
The construction of a border wall between the US and Mexico was a lodestone of President Trump's 2016 campaign, despite residents along the border questioning its usefulness.
Trump has continually raised concerns about illegal border immigration, arrests for which in the first three years of his presidency have been at historic lows.