Before Trump won his first election, in 2016, with promises to 'build the wall,' Arizona's border with Mexico already had the most barriers of any U.S. state. But an unfinished stretch lay along the southern boundary of the Tohono O'odham Nation, a reservation the size of Connecticut. Now Trump is trying to fill that line in, by ordering a wall built across a 62-mile-long stretch of reservation land. This would constitute what the chairman of the nation, Verlon Jose, called 'the biggest land grab of the modern era.' The federal government, he told me, 'hasn't unilaterally tried to take Indian lands like this in a very long time.' Cranes began putting massive steel panels in place in the San Rafael Valley last fall. From there, construction headed west toward the Tohono O'odham Nation. Jose had several meetings with local and federal officials, but the tribe's objections to the wall were ignored. The Department of Homeland Security informed Jose that it planned to award contracts for...
learn more
