DHS Wants To Build A Border Wall Through Tohono O’odham Land. It’s Another Instance of The US Undermining Tribal Sovereignty.

DHS Notifies Tohono O’odham Nation of Planned Border Wall Segments on Reservation Land, Tribe Files Lawsuit

In May, the Department of Homeland Security notified the Tohono O’odham Nation that it planned to begin construction of border wall segments crossing the tribe’s reservation in Arizona. The Tohono O’odham Nation, whose lands extend across the international boundary into Sonora, Mexico, filed suit against the Trump administration in June seeking a preliminary injunction. The complaint states that the project would produce significant effects on reservation lands and community activities.

The reservation includes a 62-mile stretch along the Mexico border. According to the complaint, the tribe has allocated an average of $3 million annually from its own resources for border security measures and maintains cooperative arrangements with federal agencies including Customs and Border Protection, the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The suit references a 1927 federal statute that requires an act of Congress to alter reservation boundaries established by prior executive or legislative action.

Federal authority over immigration enforcement and border infrastructure derives from statutes enacted by Congress and from the federal government’s constitutional powers over foreign commerce and national defense. At the same time, Native nations retain sovereign authority over their lands, a status recognized in treaties and subsequent federal law. The first treaty between the United States and a Native nation was concluded in 1778; between that date and 1871 the federal government entered into approximately 368 treaties, most of which were later modified or abrogated by statute or executive action.

Legal scholars note that federal Indian law has developed through a series of Supreme Court decisions that have produced varying interpretations of the scope of tribal authority relative to federal power. The Tohono O’odham complaint contends that the proposed construction would physically divide communities on either side of the border, affect access to sites used for religious practices, and alter terrain including areas near Baboquivari Mountain. The tribe’s filing seeks to require compliance with the 1927 boundary statute and with consultation provisions contained in other federal laws.

Caroline LaPorte, staff attorney at the Indian Law Resource Center, has observed that the English term “sovereignty” carries Western legal connotations of centralized authority that differ from some Indigenous understandings of land relationships. Keith Richotte, a law professor at the University of Arizona and member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, has stated that federal actions affecting reservation boundaries have historically generated disputes when they intersect with resource or security objectives.

The complaint and subsequent court filings do not dispute the existence of federal statutes authorizing border barrier construction in designated sectors. They instead argue that those statutes must be reconciled with the specific boundary protections cited for the Tohono O’odham reservation. DHS has not publicly detailed the precise acreage or alignment of the segments at issue in the litigation.

A separate facility known as Alligator Alcatraz, located in Big Cypress National Preserve in Florida, was constructed and operated by state authorities as an immigration detention site. The Miccosukee Tribe, whose lands adjoin the preserve, raised objections regarding proximity to villages and lack of prior consultation. Available court records indicate that litigation concerning the facility involved the tribe, state officials, and local governments; no primary federal lawsuit directly naming DHS as the sole defendant has been documented in public dockets as of the most recent reporting. The site has since closed.

The Tohono O’odham litigation remains pending. Court documents indicate that the tribe is seeking both injunctive relief and a declaratory judgment regarding the applicability of the 1927 boundary statute. Federal agencies have previously conducted environmental and cultural resource reviews for border projects on or near tribal lands under statutes such as the National Environmental Policy Act and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, though the adequacy of those reviews in this instance is among the issues raised in the complaint.

Historical records show that Congress has on multiple occasions adjusted reservation boundaries through legislation, sometimes following negotiations and sometimes through unilateral action. The current dispute centers on whether the Department of Homeland Security’s planned construction requires additional congressional authorization under the terms of the 1927 law referenced by the tribe. The outcome will depend on judicial interpretation of the interplay between that statute, later immigration enforcement legislation, and existing treaty obligations.

The case is one of several ongoing disputes involving federal infrastructure projects and tribal lands. Attorneys for both sides have indicated that further briefing and possible evidentiary hearings are expected in the coming months.