Thread: Border fence would need support of Tohono O'odham tribe

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Border fence would need support of Tohono O'odham tribe

New York Times News Service
Sept. 19, 2006 05:51 PM


TOHONO O'ODHAM RESERVATION, Ariz. - The Senate is expected to vote Wednesday on legislation to build a double-layered 700-mile-long fence on the Mexican border, a proposal already approved by the House.

If the fence is built, however, it could have a long gap - about 75 miles - at one of the border's most vulnerable points because of opposition from the Indian tribe here.

More illegal immigrants are caught - and die trying to cross into the United States - in and around the Tohono O'odham Indian territory, which straddles the Arizona border, than any other spot in the state.

Tribal leaders have cooperated with Border Patrol enforcement, but they promised to fight the building of a fence out of environmental and cultural concerns.

For the Tohono O'odham, which means "desert people," the reason is fairly simple. For generations, their people and the wildlife they revere have freely crossed the border. For years, an existing 4-foot-high cattle fence has had several openings - essentially cattle gates - that tribal members use to visit relatives and friends, take children to school and perform rites on the other side.

"I am O'odham first, and American or Mexican second or third," said Ramon Valenzuela, as he walked his two children to school through one gate two miles from his O'odham village in Mexico.

But the pushed-up bottom strands of the cattle fence and the surrounding desert littered with clothing, water jugs and discarded backpacks testify to the growth in illegal immigrant traffic, which surged here after a Border Patrol enforcement squeeze in California and Texas in the mid-1990s.

Crossers take advantage of a remote network of washes and trails - and sometimes Indian guides - to reach nearby highways bound for cities across the country.

Tribal members, who once gave water and food to the occasional passing migrant, say they have become fed up with groups of illegal immigrants breaking into homes and stealing food, water, clothing, and even using indoor and outdoor electrical outlets to charge cell phones.

With tribal police, health and other services overwhelmed by illegal immigration, the Indians welcomed National Guard members this summer to assist the Border Patrol here. The tribe, after negotiations with the Department of Homeland Security, also agreed to a plan for concrete vehicle barriers at the fence and the grading of the dirt road parallel to it for speedier Border Patrol and tribal police access. The Indians also donated a parcel this year for a small Border Patrol substation and holding pen.

Tribal members, however, fearing the symbolism of a solid wall and concern about the free range of deer, wild horses, coyotes, jackrabbits and other animals they regard as kin, said they would fight the kind of steel-plated fencing that Congress had in mind and that has slackened the crossing flow in previous hot spots like San Diego.

"Animals and our people need to cross freely," said Verlon Jose, a member of the tribal council representing border villages. "In our tradition we are taught to be concerned about every living thing as if they were people. We don't want that wall."

The federal government, the trustee of all Indian lands, could build the fence here without tribal permission, but that option is not being pressed because officials said it might jeopardize the tribe's cooperation on smuggling and other border crimes.

"We rely on them for cooperation and intelligence and phone calls about illegal activity as much as they depend on us to respond to calls," said Chuy Rodriguez, a spokesman for the Border Patrol in Tucson, who described overall relations as "getting better and better."

The Tohono number more than 30,000, including 14,000 on the Arizona reservation and 1,400 in Mexico. Building a fence would impose many challenges, apart from the political difficulties.

When steel fencing and other resources went up in California and Texas, migrant traffic shifted to the rugged terrain here, and critics say more fencing will simply force crossers to other areas without the fence. Or under it, as evidenced by the growth in the number of tunnels discovered near San Diego.

The shift in traffic to more remote, treacherous terrain also has led to hundreds of deaths of crossers, including scores on tribal land here.

The effort to curtail illegal immigration has proved especially difficult on the reservation, whose 2.8 million acres, about the size of Connecticut, make it the second largest in area.

Faced with poverty and unemployment, an increasing number of tribal members are turning to migrant and drug smuggling, tribal officials say.

Just this year, the tribal council adopted a law barring the harboring of illegal immigrants in homes, a gesture to show it is taking a "zero tolerance" stand, said the tribal chairwoman, Vivian Juan-Saunders.

Two members of Juan-Saunders' family have been convicted of drug smuggling in the past several years, and she said virtually every family had been touched by drug abuse, smuggling or both.

Sgt. Ed Perez of the tribal police said members had been offered $400 per person to transport illegal immigrants from the reservation to Tucson, a 90-minute drive, and much more to carry drugs.

The Border Patrol and tribal authorities say the increase in manpower and technology is yielding results. Deaths are down slightly, 55 this year compared with 62 last year, and arrests of illegal immigrants in the Border Patrol sectors covering the reservation are up about 10 percent.

But the influx of agents, many of whom are unfamiliar with the territory or Tohono ways, has brought complaints that the agents have interfered with tribal ceremonies, entered property uninvited and tried to block members crossing back and forth.

Juan-Saunders said helicopters swooped low and agents descended on a recent ceremony, apparently suspicious of a large gathering near the border, and she has complained to supervisors about agents speeding and damaging plants used for medicine and food. Some traditional and activist tribal members later this month are organizing a conference among eight Indian nations on or near the border to address concerns here and elsewhere.

"We are in a police state," said Michael Flores, a tribal member helping to organize the conference. "It is not a tranquil place anymore."

Rodriguez acknowledged the concerns but said agents operated in a murky world where a rush of pickups from a border village just might be tribal members attending an all-night wake, or something else.

"Agents make stops based on what they see," he said. "Sometimes an agent sees something different from what tribal members or others see."

Agents, he added, are receiving more cultural training, including a new cultural awareness video just shot with the help of tribal members.

"Our relations have come a long way" in the past decade, he said.

Valenzuela said several agents knew him and waved as he traveled across the border but others have stopped him, demanding identification. Once, he said, he left at home a card that identifies him as a tribal member and an agent demanded that he go back into Mexico and cross at the official port of entry in Sasabe, 20 miles away.

"I told him this is my land, not his," said Valenzuela, who was finally allowed to proceed after the agent radioed supervisors.

Valenzuela said he would not be surprised if a big fence eventually went up, but Juan-Saunders said she would affirm the tribe's concerns to Congress and the Homeland Security department. She said she would await final word on the fence and its design before taking action.

She said that members of Congress she has met "recognize we pose some unique issues to them and that was really what we are attempting to do, to educate them to our unique situation."

The House last week approved a Republican-backed bill 238-138 calling for double-layer fencing along a third of the 2,000-mile-long border, roughly from Calexico, Calif., to Douglas, Ariz.

There is considerable support for the idea in the Senate, although the proposal's outcome with President Bush remains uncertain. The Homeland Security secretary, Michael Chertoff, has expressed doubts about sealing the border with fences.

Going to need a Wall of Americans to guard the border. 20 per mile or 40,000 for the approximately 2000 miles Southern Border. This is the best and only way to stop illegal immigration without interfering with wildlife and the environment.

I support the fence but in addition to the fence, we need every single mile of this border secured with personnel.

The cost of a 40,000 guard force covering the border 24/7/365 using a force of 40,000 working in shifts would be approximately $2 Billion a year at $40,000 per year in salary plus good federal benefits, supplies and eqipment. Border Patrol, National Guard and Local and State Police can back them up.

Their job is simple. No one gets through. Period.