A Native American Burial Ground Is Being Desecrated to Make Way for Donald Trump’s Border Wall

A Native American burial ground along the US–Mexico border is
under threat of destruction as President Donald Trump presses
forward with plans to build a border wall separating the two
countries.

Construction crews in Arizona have begun blasting away boulders
and cutting down cacti in an area directly
abutting a Tohono O’odham Nation burial site,  which
at least a dozen Native American nationals claim a connection to,
according to Arizona representative Raúl M. Grijalva.

The area “is a sacred site to the O’odham and other indigenous
people,” Grijalva told CNN. “And it’s quite literally being blown up
so Trump can build the border wall across this mountain… It’s just
heartbreaking to watch.”

“The controlled blasting is targeted and will continue
intermittently for the rest of the month,” a spokesperson for the
US border agency told the Arizona Republic.

According to a Washington Post report from
September, there are 22 important sites in Arizona’s Organ Pipe
Cactus National Monument that the National Park Service
fears could be demolished or damaged as the border wall is
erected. The park is recognized by UNESCO as a precious biosphere
preserve and includes around 330,000 acres of land.

Earlier this year, construction workers discovered a human bone
in the park that was later dated to between 300 and 1500 AD.

But the Trump administration has waived American laws protecting
such sites—and the endangered species that live on them—in
accordance with the REAL ID Act, a 2005 law that allows the
federal government to disregard legislation that is deemed to be in
conflict with US security policy.

Grijalva, who visited the area in January ahead of the
demolition, sent a letter to the head of the US Department of
Homeland Security, Chad Wolf, urging him to speak
to O’odham representatives before any work was carried
out.

“Members of the Tohono O’odham Nation recently informed me that
the Department of Homeland Security is not respecting tribal lands
and sacred sites as they proceed with border wall plans and
construction,” he wrote last month.

“I strongly urge [the department[ to conduct meaningful
government-to-government consultation with the Tohono O’odham
Nation about the DHS’s planned border wall construction.”

But that conversation never took place, Grijalva now
says.

“There has been no consultation with the nation,” Grijalva told
CBS News. “This administration is basically
trampling on the tribe’s history—and to put it poignantly, its
ancestry.”

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