WASHINGTON — A federal judge has refused to block the Trump administration from taking steps to build 62 miles of international border wall along part of a Native American tribe’s reservation without its consent.
U.S. District Judge Richard Leon in Washington denied the Tohono O’odham Nation’s request for a court-ordered halt to border wall construction on its 2.8-million-acre reservation. Leon ruled Friday that the tribe hasn’t established that a border wall will change its reservation boundaries without congressional authority.
The judge also rejected the tribe’s claim that the planned border wall would illegally trespass on its reservation.
“And in any event, I find that the Government’s interests in securing the border, enforcing immigration laws, and ensuring public safety outweigh any surviving irreparable harms at this juncture,” Leon wrote.
The tribe released a statement late Friday strongly disagreeing with the decision.
“Too many critical issues were not adequately addressed, such as inevitable impacts construction will have on the Nation’s land and the permanent destruction of sacred sites,” Tohono O’odham Nation Chairman Verlon M. Jose said. “The Nation will consider all possible options for moving forward, as this issue is simply too important to the O’odham.”
The O’odham reservation in the Sonoran Desert in Arizona abuts 62 miles of the Mexico border. The tribe has more than 37,000 members, including thousands who live in Mexico.
Building the border wall would lead to “significant devastation” on the reservation, including the destruction of mountain peaks that are sacredto the O’odham, tribe attorneys said.
“It would fray the ties between O’odham communities and families on opposite sides of the border, interfere significantly with O’odham religious rituals and practices, and destroy plant and animal resources sacred to the O’odham,” the lawyers wrote.
In 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt issued a proclamation reserving a 60-foot strip of public land along the U.S.-Mexico border for a buffer zone dubbed the “Roosevelt Reservation,” which was formed a decade before the reservation’s establishment.
Tribe attorneys say it is “fanciful at best” to suggest that border wall construction can be confined to a 60-foot-wide corridor.
During a July 22 hearing, Leon appeared to be skeptical that U.S. laws tip in favor of the tribe’s bid for a preliminary injunction, calling it an “extraordinary” request. Leon, who was nominated to the bench by President George W. Bush, said he couldn’t find a previous court ruling under comparable circumstances.
“This is a novel case with novel issues,” the judge said.
Kunzelman writes for the Associated Press.
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