After much talk, Trump’s border wall is becoming a reality, even if it means destroying sacred Native American land in the process. Just this past week signs bearing “Blast Warning Signals” began appearing for the start of Trump’s border wall. Sacred Native American burial sites in the Arizona Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument are being threatened with destruction. 

The national park has been recognized as a UNESCO biosphere reserve since 1976 in order to preserve its unique desert ecosystem, and it’s home to more than two dozen species of cacti and a number of different wildlife.

The particular site that is at risk is Monument Hill and according to Raul Grijalva, an Arizona Democratic congressman, a number of Apache warriors were buried there after battling with the O’odham. Grijalva made sure his disapproval of the construction on the burial site was known by tweeting “Remember when Trump threatened to blow up Iranian cultural sites? Looks like he set his sights on something closer to home. To build his racist wall, he’s blowing up sacred Native American burial grounds without notifying local tribes. This is wrong.”

Still, the actions of the Trump administration are totally legal under the 2005 REAL ID Act which gives the government the right to waive laws that conflict with US national security. Essentially the government can ignore land that is significantly cultural or environmental for the construction of the border wall. 

The construction was approved back in May of 2019 by the Department of Defense. They awarded $891 million to contractors for wall construction at Organ Pipe and the nearby Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge. This was only considered a small part of the work being done across the U.S. Mexico border. 

These controlled blastings are expected to continue through the end of February. With the rate that construction is going, many environmental groups are worried that the sacred burial sites and ancestral land will be gone. 

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has said they will have an environmental monitor present during the construction, which seems unlikely. At the same time, the Federal government didn’t even consult with the Tohono O’odham Nation, a recognized tribe that has land and members on both sides of the U.S. Mexico border. 

To bring more attention to destruction and disrespect from the Trump administration, many activists have begun sharing pictures on social media of ancient saguaro cacti being sawed in half or flattened.

Ned Norris Jr., the chairman of the Tohono O’odham Nation said “How would you feel if someone brought a bulldozer to your family graveyard and started uprooting the graves there?”, to put in perspective how Native Americans, environmental groups and others feel about this construction to build the border wall. 

The Trump administration has received repeated warnings from a wide spectrum of people on putting wildlife and sacred land at risk. Destroying sacred land to build a wall is just obscene. Sacred land and protected areas should be avoided to build such things.