Border Wall Crew Blasts Sacred Native American Site

The Arizona Republic reports:

The contractor that is building President Donald Trump’s border wall in southwestern Arizona began blasting this week through a site that the Native American O’odham people consider sacred to make way for newer, taller barriers.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection confirmed the contractor started blasting through the site called Monument Hill at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument west of Lukeville “in preparation for new border wall system construction within the Roosevelt Reservation.”

Southwest Valley Constructors of Albuquerque, New Mexico, received a $646 million contract from the federal government, paid for using diverted military funds, to build 63 miles of fencing in Pima and Cochise counties.

Arizona national monument, home to sacred Native American burial sites, is being blown up for the border wall https://t.co/LXyrHUUilh pic.twitter.com/4MJWi2lW8m

— CBS News (@CBSNews) February 8, 2020

Miles of new border wall construction mean more precious desert habitats at risk, more militarized communities, and more Native American sacred sites slated for destruction.

Bulldozing these for the sake of a vanity wall is reprehensible. #SOTU https://t.co/qmitVqqCwj

— Raul M. Grijalva (@RepRaulGrijalva) February 5, 2020

Just informed by a source that @DHSgov has started dynamiting Monument Hill in Organ Pipe for wall construction.

Yeah. Trump is exploding a mountain in a UNESCO biosphere reserve, national monument & wilerness area to build the #BorderWall. pic.twitter.com/PXQeJH2C5m

— Laiken Jordahl (@LaikenJordahl) February 5, 2020