US-Mexico border wall construction is desecrating sacred sites, Indigenous leaders say
TECATE, Mexico (AP) — Burning white sage, Norma Meza Calles gathers guests of a Mexican wellness resort in a semicircle overlooking Mount Kuuchamaa and asks everyone to close their eyes and feel her presence.
Kumeyaay Nation tribal leader Meza Calles said, “This place is sacred to us, just like a church for all of you. The mountain is our healer, our psychologist,” explaining that in the creation story, a shaman turned into a mountain. “This is where we gather the strength to live in this difficult world.”
It then invites you to think for a moment. However, the silence is broken by the breaking of rocks. US federal contractors are blasting and bulldozing Kuuchamaa, which lies between the two countries, to make way for new sections. wall along the US-Mexico border.
Indigenous leaders say contractors are disrespecting the city in Trump administration’s rush to build border walls Native American sacred places More than 170 years after the international border divided the lands of dozens of tribes and cultural areas with unprecedented speed.
Federal teams launched an explosion on the sacred mountain
Barrier construction has accelerated along the 3,145-kilometer (1,954-mile) border Although illegal crossings have decreased reached historical lows. Most of them were released this year by the US Department of Homeland Security. waived cultural and environmental laws.
Eruptions at Kuuchamaa in California caused rocks to fall on the Mexican side.
“We feel it in our DNA,” said Emily Burgueno, a California member of the Kumeyaay Nation, adding that “body” and “earth” are the same word in the Kumeyaay language. Some tribal leaders have met with DHS officials and encouraged them to protect Kuuchamaa and are considering legal action.
“No one allowed or supported the use of dynamite on the mountain,” Burgueno said.
The nation consists of more than a dozen tribes in California and Mexico’s Baja California.
In Arizona, DHS contractors last month carved a massive 1,000-year-old fish-shaped geoglyph called “Las Playas Intaglio.” The rare drawing etched into the desert floor, which closely resembles Peru’s Nazca Lines, was created on a lava field in what is now known as the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge.
The Tohono O’odham Nation said it has flagged the area on its ancestral lands for developers to avoid.
“This was a devastating and completely preventable loss,” Tohono O’odham President Verlon Jose said in a statement April 30. “There is nothing more important than our history; it is what makes us who we are as O’odham. This site was also an irreplaceable part of the history of the United States that none of us can bring back.”
U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in a statement that a contractor “accidentally disturbed” the site west of Ajo, Ariz., on April 23 but promised to protect the remainder. CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott is speaking with tribal leaders to determine next steps.
Members of the Arizona Inter-Tribal Alliance, which represents 21 tribes, traveled to Washington last month to lobby against a 20-foot (6-meter) secondary barrier wall along that section of the border as well as a planned 30-foot (9-meter) primary barrier wall on Tohono O’odham tribal lands. They met with the Minister of Internal Security Markwayne MullinThe Tohono O’odham Nation said in a statement that there was a member of the Cherokee Nation who listened but made clear that his intention was to build more border wall as quickly as possible.
Hundreds of kilometers under contract
The Trump administration says the barriers are necessary to prevent people and drugs from entering the United States illegally. He wants the walls to cover at least 1,400 miles (2,250 kilometers) of the border.
Trump’s ” big beautiful bill ” allocated more than $46 billion to this effort.
CBP has contracted or begun construction on more than 600 miles (966 kilometers) of new border wall with accompanying surveillance technology. Double walls are planned or under construction along 370 miles (596 kilometers).
In Arizona, where the Patagonian Mountains tumble to the border, heavy machinery is crawling along newly leveled roads to widen double walls that could close off a wildlife corridor for endangered ocelots and jaguars. Jaguars have long coexisted with the Tohono O’odham, who view the species as “spiritual protectors,” tribal leader Austin Nunez said in a lawsuit unsuccessfully challenging DHS exemptions in 2025.
This year, crews in Sunland Park on New Mexico’s Mexican border staged eruptions on Mount Cristo Rey, a pilgrimage site topped with a limestone cross.
CBP is trying to take over a part of the mountain belonging to the Roman Catholic Church for wall construction. The Diocese of Las Cruces this month asked a judge to reject the land transfer on the grounds that it was an affront to religious freedoms and “the faithful who seek to commune with God on Mount Cristo Rey.”
In west Texas, the federal government notified ranchers along the Rio Grande east of Big Bend National Park in February that they were interested in their land, which contains canyon-zone pictographs and petroglyphs, said Raymond Skiles, a retired Big Bend National Park ranger.
“There are pictographs, pictures of shamanic figures, and various other things that we don’t know how to interpret,” Skiles said, describing the drawings on his family’s farmland.
Following community outcry, CBP’s online planning map showed plans for the 100-foot wall were canceled due to surveillance technology, patrols and some vehicle barriers. Parts of the national park and neighboring Big Bend Ranch State Park will rely solely on technology.
CBP says it recognizes the importance of natural and cultural resources and is working to minimize the impact of construction, including leaving drainage gates in wildlife corridors open for passage of animals. The agency says illegal border crossings pollute, pollute and trample sensitive habitats.
CBP also says the 535 miles (860 kilometers) of remote, rugged border terrain will rely solely on detection technology.
Many tribes prefer this to walls.
Desecrating Native American sites is a felony
Border tribes “all experience the same tragic disrespect of our cultural and sacred lands,” said Burgueno, president of the Kumeyaay Diegueño Land Conservancy, a nonprofit organization that works to protect Kumeyaay lands in California. “This is a great example of the federal government not following federal law.”
Desecrating a sacred Native American site on U.S. federal or tribal lands is a felony and is punishable by imprisonment and fines. In 1992, the National Park Service listed Mount Kuuchamaa, also called Tecate Peak, on the National Register of Historic Places, granting it limited protection. He stated that “it would be disrespectful to remove or disrupt the natural state of the mountain.”
Located 3,885 feet (1,184 meters) above sea level, Kuuchamaa has fascinated non-Indigenous people as well.
Sarah Livia Brightwood Szekely said her father, Edmond Szekely, felt the healing energy of the mountain when he arrived in Tecate, Mexico, as a Hungarian Jewish refugee during World War II and founded the famous wellness resort Rancho La Puerta, which he now operates.
“All of these people have a deep relationship with the mountain,” he said.
Meza Calles leads walks through Rancho La Puerta to teach guests about Kuuchamaa.
Traditionally, young men spend 40 days at the base in a coming-of-age ceremony before becoming warriors or shamans, he said. Today’s rituals are shorter. He said people suffering from death, debt, divorce or other hardships seek Kuuchamaa’s healing.
“It’s a shame they destroyed the mountain,” he said. “We will see how far they will go. Destiny is destiny. But the fight is not over.”
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Lee reported from Santa Fe, New Mexico.
