WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge on Friday 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, D.C., denied the Tohono O’odham Nation’s request that a court order a halt to border wall construction on its 2.8 million-acre reservation. León ruled that the tribe has not established that a border wall will change the boundaries of its reservation 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 case, I find that the government’s interests in securing the border, enforcing immigration laws, and ensuring public safety outweigh any irreparable harm surviving at this juncture,” León wrote. The tribe issued a statement Friday night strongly disagreeing with the decision. “Too many critical issues were not adequately addressed, such as the inevitable impacts construction will have on the nation’s land and the permanent destruction of sacred sites,” said Tohono O’odham Nation President Verlon M. Jose. “The Nation will consider all possible options moving forward as this issue is simply too important to the O’odham.” The O’odham Reservation in Arizona’s Sonoran Desert abuts 62 miles of the Mexican border. The tribe has more than 37,000 members, including thousands who live in Mexico. Construction of the border wall would cause “significant devastation” on the reservation, including the destruction of mountain peaks that are sacred to the O’odham, the tribe’s attorneys said. “This would fray ties between O’odham communities and families on opposite sides of the border, significantly interfere with O’odham rituals and religious practices, and destroy plant and animal resources sacred to the O’odham,” the attorneys wrote. In 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt issued a proclamation reserving a 60-foot strip of public land along the United States-Mexico border for a buffer zone called the “Roosevelt Reservation,” which was formed a decade before the reservation’s establishment. The tribe’s attorneys say it is “fanciful at best” to suggest that border wall construction can be limited to a 60-foot-wide corridor. Subscribe to Morning Wire: Our flagship newsletter breaks down the day’s biggest headlines. During a July 22 hearing, León appeared skeptical that U.S. law would lean in favor of the tribe’s request for a preliminary injunction, calling it an “extraordinary” request. Leon, who was nominated for the position by Republican President George W. Bush, said he could not find a previous court ruling under comparable circumstances. “This is a new case with novel issues,” the judge said.
