Healing the Desert Wounds that Trump’s Wall Is Opening

On the thirtieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, here in the U.S. we gather to mourn the construction of a new border wall, and all the human and animal rights it threatens.

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At Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument on Saturday, November 9, more than 300 people of different nations, races, cultures, and faiths gathered peacefully to grieve the new construction of an unnecessary wall on the U.S.-Mexico Border. 

Construction activities here already threaten people and wildlife, violating native and other place-based spiritual practices and destroying ancient cactus and ironwood forests. Homeland Security suspended forty-one state and national laws to allow construction to begin, and two court cases against the wall are still pending. The department has rushed to begin wall construction even before these issues are legally settled. 

At Quitobaquito Springs—one of the most biodiverse oases in the entire Sonoran Desert—the drilling of wells nearby and the wall’s deep concrete footers threaten to disrupt groundwater flows feeding the spring and its wildlife. The denuding of the landscape to build the massive new wall provides openings for non-native plant species. 

As one Tohono O’odham woman whispered to me, shocked, as she stood over the carcasses of bulldozed saguaro cacti, “They are destroying our ancestors. For what?” 

The speakers shared prayers, poems, songs, and speeches at the assembly staged near the park’s visitors center. Many of those present perceived Homeland Security to be in violation of international human rights laws. They believe the department may also be violating the Constitution and its protection of religious freedoms by fast-tracking the disruption of place-based spiritual practices and religious traditions. 

If the sanctuary in which you worship were cut in half by a wall, with dust and 24/7 floodlights in the air, and without access to the sacred plants and spring waters that have been used sacramentally for millennia, would you not feel violated?    

In contrast, our diverse group, people from three nations and no less than six cultures, obeyed the law—obtaining permits and respectfully following law enforcers’ guidance. This was a multicultural community in mourning, like you might see at a wake or memorial service.

We stood on high ground Saturday, praying that those who are solely focused on digging up the earth to build barriers will do the same.

It was inspiring to see so many people from different faiths, languages, and walks of life convene in solidarity with the O’odham youth and elders who offered us their perspective as original inhabitants of this landscape. 

Among the many constituencies represented at Saturday’s event, I spotted the National Parks Conservation Association,  the Center for Biological Diversity, International Sonoran Desert Alliance; Indivisible Tohono; Women Act Now, Grand Canyon chapter of the Sierra Club, No More Deaths/No Más Muertes, Episcopal Peace Fellowship, Friends of the Sonoran Desert, Deportados Unidos En La Lucha, the Jewish Voice for Peace Tucson, the Hia c-ed Oʼodham  and Tohono Oʼodham Nations, Good Samaritans, Franciscan Action Network, the Raging Grannies, and Univision Mexico..

There were peace and justice activists from Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, Catholic, Presbyterian, Quaker, Episcopalian, and Native American tradtions present. Some members of those faiths— like the Oʼodham practitioners of Catholicism—have celebrated Palm Sundays, the Dia de los Muertos and baptisms at Quitobaquito springs since 1699. All of these faith-based activists understand that when one cultural community sees the sanctity of their sacred sites and ceremonial grounds desecrated by capricious governmental decisions, all of our religious freedoms and human rights are put at further risk.

This borderland is shared by many cultures, many kinds of wildlife and plants, and by many spiritual traditions.

We cannot just wait to see what the courts decide. We need to begin the compassionate, rational, and legal planning to protect, restore, or reconsecrate other vulnerable sites along the border as soon as possible. 

We urge the Army Corps of Engineers and Homeland Security to use their budgets to begin efforts toward healing the wounds in the desert and re-sanctifying sacred sites. Restorative justice—not further acrimony or rancor—should be the next step. The borderlands are shared by many cultures, many kinds of wildlife and plants, and by many spiritual traditions. Together, they give the Sonoran Desert its integrity, beauty, and sacredness. Pray for healing. Pray that the wounding will cease.