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<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element"> <font
size="-2"><a class="domain reader-domain"
href="https://theintercept.com/2019/08/25/border-patrol-israel-elbit-surveillance/">https://theintercept.com/2019/08/25/border-patrol-israel-elbit-surveillance/</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">The U.S. Border Patrol and an Israeli
Military Contractor Are Putting a Native American Reservation
Under “Persistent Surveillance”</h1>
<div class="credits reader-credits">Will Parrish - August 25,
2019</div>
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<p><u>On the southwestern end</u> of the Tohono O’odham
Nation’s reservation, roughly 1 mile from a
barbed-wire barricade marking Arizona’s border with
the Mexican state of Sonora, Ofelia Rivas leads me to
the base of a hill overlooking her home. A U.S. Border
Patrol truck is parked roughly 200 yards upslope. A
small black mast mounted with cameras and sensors is
positioned on a trailer hitched to the truck. For
Rivas, the Border Patrol’s monitoring of the
reservation has been a grim aspect of everyday life.
And that surveillance is about to become far more
intrusive.</p>
<p>The vehicle is parked where U.S. Customs and Border
Protection will soon construct a 160-foot surveillance
tower capable of continuously monitoring every person
and vehicle within a radius of up to 7.5 miles. The
tower will be outfitted with high-definition cameras
with night vision, thermal sensors, and
ground-sweeping radar, all of which will feed
real-time data to Border Patrol agents at a central
operating station in Ajo, Arizona. The system will
store an archive with the ability to rewind and track
individuals’ movements across time — an ability known
as “wide-area persistent surveillance.”</p>
<p>CBP plans 10 of these towers across the Tohono
O’odham reservation, which spans an area roughly the
size of Connecticut. Two will be located near
residential areas, including Rivas’s neighborhood,
which is home to about 50 people. To build them, CBP
has <a
href="https://www.prnewswire.com/il/news-releases/us-customs-and-border-protection-tohono-oodham-nation-agree-on-border-security-solution-by-elbit-systems-of-america-300875152.html">entered</a>
a $26 million contract with the U.S. division of Elbit
Systems, Israel’s largest military company.</p>
<p>Tohono O’odham people used to move freely across
these lands, Rivas says, but following years of
harassment by Border Patrol agents, many are afraid to
venture far from their homes.</p>
<p>“Now we won’t be able to go anywhere near here
without the big U.S.-Israeli eyes monitoring us,
watching our every move,” she says.</p>
<p>Fueled by the growing demonization of migrants, as
well as ongoing fears of foreign terrorism, the U.S.
borderlands have become laboratories for new systems
of enforcement and control. Firsthand reporting,
interviews, and a review of documents for this story
provide a window into the high-tech surveillance
apparatus CBP is building in the name of deterring
illicit migration — and highlight how these same
systems often end up targeting other marginalized
populations as well as political dissidents.</p>
</div>
<blockquote data-reactid="200">
<p>The U.S. borderlands have become laboratories for new
systems of enforcement and control.</p>
</blockquote>
<div data-reactid="202">
<p>The towers on Tohono O’odham land are part of a surge
in wide-area persistent surveillance systems across
the borderlands. Elbit Systems of America has already
built 55 integrated fixed towers in southern Arizona,
which company executives say cover 200 linear miles.
According to information provided by a CBP
spokesperson, the agency has also deployed 368 smaller
surveillance towers, known as RVSS towers, in areas
ranging from south of San Diego to the Rio Grande
Valley, as well as along parts of the U.S.-Canadian
border.</p>
<p>Civil liberties advocates and academics have pointed
out the heightened abuses and increased migrant
suffering that have resulted from the new
state-of-the-art surveillance gear. According to Jay
Stanley, senior policy analyst with the American Civil
Liberties Union’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology
Project, the spread of persistent surveillance
technologies is particularly worrisome because they
remove any limit on how much information police can
gather on a person’s movements. “The border is the
natural place for the government to start using them,
since there is much more public support to deploy
these sorts of intrusive technologies there,” he said.</p>
<p>In February, Congress allocated $100 million for
integrated fixed towers and mobile surveillance
systems, a sign that the towers may soon expand to new
locations.</p>
<p>According to Bobby Brown, senior director of Customs
and Border Protection at Elbit Systems of America, the
company’s ultimate goal is to build a “layer” of
electronic surveillance equipment across the entire
perimeter of the U.S. “Over time, we’ll expand not
only to the northern border, but to the ports and
harbors across the country,” Brown said in an
interview with The Intercept. “There’s a lot to be
done.”</p>
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<p><img
src="https://theintercept.imgix.net/wp-uploads/sites/1/2019/08/GettyImages-623406668-resize-1566503170.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&q=90&w=1024&h=682"
alt="ARIVACA, AZ - NOVEMBER 15: A U.S. Border
Patrol surveillance camera overlooks a remote area
of the U.S.-Mexico border on November 15, 2016
near Arivaca, Arizona. Nearby, armed civilian
paramilitaries with Arizona Border Recon, made up
mostly of former U.S. military servicemen and
women, staged a reconnaissance and surveillance
operation against drug and human smugglers. The
group, which claims up to 200 volunteers, does not
consider itself a militia, but rather a group of
citizens supplementing U.S. Border Patrol efforts
to control illegal border activity. With the
election of Donald Trump as President, border
security issues are a top national issue for the
incoming Administration. (Photo by John
Moore/Getty Images)"></p>
<p class="caption">A Border Patrol surveillance camera
overlooks a remote area of the U.S.-Mexico border on
Nov. 15, 2016, near Arivaca, Ariz.</p>
<p class="caption">Photo: John Moore/Getty Images</p>
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<h3>Building the Virtual Wall</h3>
<p>Long before President Donald Trump called for the
construction of a “big, beautiful wall” along the
U.S.-Mexico border, there was the idea of a “virtual
wall.” In 2006, Congress authorized the construction
of 700 miles of fencing to be accompanied by a vast
buildup of surveillance equipment and border guards in
more remote terrain.</p>
<p>A key component of that effort, known as SBINet, was
canceled after five years and more than $1 billion in
expenditures. In the wake of that failure, CBP turned
to Elbit, based in Haifa, Israel, awarding it a $145
million contract in 2014 to develop the integrated
fixed towers in southern Arizona. In addition to fixed
and mobile surveillance towers, other technology that
CBP has acquired and deployed includes <a
href="https://www.cbp.gov/frontline/frontline-november-aerostats">blimps</a>
outfitted with high-powered ground and air radar,
sensors buried underground, and facial recognition <a
href="https://fcw.com/articles/2019/02/21/cbp-facial-recognition-border.aspx">software</a>
at ports of entry. CBP’s drone fleet has been <a
href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/border-patrol-drones-being-borrowed-by-other-agencies-more-often-than-previously-known/2014/01/14/5f987af0-7d49-11e3-9556-4a4bf7bcbd84_story.html">described</a>
as the largest of any U.S. agency outside the
Department of Defense.</p>
<p>The surveillance has had an acute impact on
borderland communities, including on the Tohono
O’odham reservation. Drones fly overhead, and motion
sensors track foot traffic. CBP checkpoints monitor
people traveling between the reservation and cities
such as Tucson and Phoenix. Vehicle barriers,
surveillance cameras, and trucks have appeared near
burial grounds and on hilltops amid ancient saguaro
forests, which are sacred to people on the
reservation.</p>
<p>Nellie Jo David, a Tohono O’odham tribal member who
is writing her dissertation on border security issues
at the University of Arizona, says many younger people
who have been forced by economic circumstances to work
in nearby cities are returning home less and less,
because they want to avoid the constant surveillance
and harassment. “It’s especially taken a toll on our
younger generations.”</p>
<p>Border militarism has been spreading worldwide owing
to neoliberal economic policies, wars, and the onset
of the climate crisis, all of which have contributed
to the uprooting of increasingly large numbers of
people, notes Reece Jones, a University of
Hawaii-Manoa geography professor who studies borders
and migration.</p>
<p>“The build-up started in the 1990s, but particularly
after the declaration of the war on terror, funding
began flowing into the border security sector in all
these different places around the world,” Jones says.
The number of fortified borders worldwide soared from
15 to 70 between 2000 and 2015, he added.</p>
<p>This militarization has, in turn, created new profit
opportunities for technology and defense firms. In the
U.S., leading companies with border security contracts
include long-established contractors such as Lockheed
Martin in addition to recent upstarts such as Anduril
Industries, founded by tech mogul Palmer Luckey to
feed the growing market for artificial intelligence
and surveillance sensors — primarily in the
borderlands.</p>
<p>Elbit Systems has frequently touted a major advantage
over these competitors: the fact that its products are
“<a
href="https://elbitsystems.com/media/Advanced-Border-Security-Solution.pdf">field-proven</a>”
on Palestinians. The company built surveillance
sensors <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/1.5113359">for
Israel’s separation barrier</a> through the West
Bank, which has been deemed illegal under
international law, as well as around the Gaza Strip
and <a
href="https://www.israeldefense.co.il/en/content/sensor-system-be-deployed-along-israel-lebanon-border">on
the northern border</a> with Lebanon and Syria.</p>
<p>Elbit is also one of the main contractors on a new
kind of <a
href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2018/03/06/israeli-official-bets-advances-in-anti-tunnel-technology-will-secure-gaza-border">underground
wall,</a> still under construction, around the
blockaded Gaza Strip. Elbit’s drones <a
href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/elbit-wins-drone-contract-for-up-to-68m-to-help-monitor-europe-coast/">patrol
the Mediterranean Sea</a> as part of the European
Union’s bid to seal off access to migrants from North
Africa, and it has provided its technologies to
militaries in Australia, Africa, Asia, Central
America, and South America.</p>
<p>Elbit’s contract to deploy IFTs on the Tohono O’odham
reservation, which the company <a
href="https://www.prnewswire.com/il/news-releases/us-customs-and-border-protection-tohono-oodham-nation-agree-on-border-security-solution-by-elbit-systems-of-america-300875152.html">announced</a>
on June 26, follows several years of contentious
debate within the tribal nation, with those living
near tower construction sites voicing strident
opposition. Two years ago, CBP released a
study claiming that integrated fixed tower
construction wouldn’t cause archaeological,
environmental, or community harm. The agency also
decreased the number of proposed towers and redesigned
their bases so they wouldn’t extend underground. The
Tohono O’odham legislative council unanimously
approved the towers on March 22, citing the importance
of helping Border Patrol agents stem cross-border drug
trafficking.</p>
<p>In an <a
href="https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-arizona-tribe-border-patrol-trump-wall-20190509-htmlstory.html">interview</a>
with the Los Angeles Times, Verlon Jose, then-tribal
vice chair, said that many nation members calculated
that the towers would help dissuade the federal
government from building a border wall across their
lands. The Tohono O’odham are “only as sovereign as
the federal government allows us to be,” Jose said. A
Border Patrol spokesperson told the newspaper,
however, that the IFTs did not eliminate the need for
a wall.</p>
<p>The Tohono O’odham Nation’s current chair and vice
chair did not respond to requests for comment on this
story.</p>
<p>In a statement to The Intercept, CBP spokesperson
Meredith Mingledorff said Elbit’s integrated fixed
towers enhance Border Patrol agents’ safety at a low
cost. “IFTs are a ‘force multiplier’ that enables one
agent to monitor various different sites remotely from
a secure location,” she said. “They are low cost of
maintenance and allow for greater efficiency of law
enforcement operations, as we can better deploy
resources depending on the type of incursion that is
detected by the technology.”</p>
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<p><img
src="https://theintercept.imgix.net/wp-uploads/sites/1/2019/08/elbit-1566616918.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&q=90"
alt="elbit-1566616918"></p>
<p class="caption">Joel Friederich, vice president of
public safety and homeland security at Elbit Systems
of America, discusses the company’s latest border
surveillance products at a company testing facility
in Marana, Ariz., in April 2019.</p>
<p class="caption">Photo: Griselda Zetino/KTAR News
92.3/KTAR.com</p>
</div>
</div>
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<h3>Elbit’s Showcase</h3>
<p>On a sweltering afternoon in early April, Elbit
Systems of America executives showcased their latest
border surveillance products at a company testing
facility in Marana, Arizona, roughly 20 miles
northwest of downtown Tucson. The event centered
around a live demonstration of the IFT command and
control system, known as TORCH. The system, which
Elbit originally developed for the Israel Defense
Forces, is used to monitor people’s movements along
Israel’s border and separation walls. Now, it is also
used by the Border Patrol at command centers across
southern Arizona.</p>
<p>The event also served as a showcase for Elbit’s
high-level political support. U.S. Sen. Martha
McSally’s deputy state director was on hand, as was
Ron Colburn, a former national deputy chief of the
Border Patrol and current Elbit adviser. Colburn is
perhaps best known for <a
href="https://heavy.com/news/2018/11/ronald-colburn/">an
appearance on Fox News</a> last November defending
the Border Patrol’s use of tear gas and pepper spray
on migrant caravan participants near Tijuana, who had
attempted to cross into the United States. Pepper
spray “is natural,” Colburn said, before adding, “You
could actually put it on your nachos and eat it.”</p>
<p>Joel Friederich, Elbit Systems of America’s vice
president of public safety and homeland security,
stood near a wall-sized monitor flanked by a pair of
Elbit engineers as reporters and invited guests looked
on. On the screen, a satellite map was populated with
clusters of yellow and pink dots. Several smaller
surrounding images displayed live feeds from the
various video cameras and radar sensors adorning a
demonstration tower on site. “This can be zoomed in
for many, many miles,” Friederich explained.</p>
<p>An engineer clicked on one of the yellow dots,
zooming in on one of the video feeds. Suddenly,
several cars inching across U.S. Interstate 10 came
distinctly into view. He zoomed in further, and the
screen settled on a patch of shrubs adjacent to a
roadway, close enough that the bright green, swaying
tips of the creosote bushes were visible, though they
were well over a mile away. The operating system uses
artificial intelligence to assign an icon representing
a human, vehicle, or animal, allowing Border Patrol
agents to determine if something moving across the
desert is a potential “item of interest,” Friederich
noted. That item could include “anyone carrying a
weapon or a backpack, or anyone in a large group.”</p>
<p>For Elbit, the holy grail of border surveillance is
to ensure that no person can escape TORCH’s ability to
track them across time and space in a given area. If
one of the “items” ducks into a bush, the system can
track them using a long-range infrared camera. For
night operations, the towers have laser illuminators.
A pick-up truck that can be remotely operated with a
surveillance tower and 6-mile camera range is also
able to feed data to TORCH in case someone ducks
behind a mountain or into a ravine. The company is
currently marketing the truck to CBP.</p>
<p>In 2016, Israel became the first country to deploy
autonomous vehicles in a border area, <a
href="https://www.foxnews.com/tech/robot-patrol-israeli-army-to-deploy-autonomous-vehicles-on-gaza-border">which
were also created by Elbit</a>.</p>
</div>
<blockquote data-reactid="209">
<p>“The idea is that at the very moment you step near
the border, Elbit will catch you. Something similar
happens in Palestine.”</p>
</blockquote>
<div data-reactid="211">
<p>Leading Democrats have argued for the development of
an ever-more sophisticated border surveillance state
as an alternative to Trump’s border wall. “The
positive, shall we say, almost technological wall that
can be built is what we should be doing,” House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in January.</p>
<p>But for those crossing the border, the development of
this surveillance apparatus has already taken a heavy
toll. In January, a <a
href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08865655.2019.1570861">study</a>
published by researchers from the University of
Arizona and Earlham College found that border
surveillance towers have prompted migrants to cross
along more rugged and circuitous pathways, leading to
greater numbers of deaths from dehydration,
exhaustion, and exposure.</p>
<p>Maren Mantovani, a Palestinian activist and
international coordinator of <a
href="https://stopthewall.org/">Stop the Wall</a>, a
coalition that opposes Israel’s walls in the
Palestinian territories and elsewhere, has tracked
Elbit’s activities for nearly two decades. The
company’s business success reflects the central role
borders are playing in an emerging global surveillance
society, she says. “Walls are not only a question of
blocking people from moving, but they are also serving
as borders or frontiers between where you enter the
surveillance state,” she said. “The idea is that at
the very moment you step near the border, Elbit will
catch you. Something similar happens in Palestine.”</p>
<p>At the 13th annual Border Security Expo in San
Antonio, Texas, two weeks prior to the event in
Arizona, Friederich said in an interview with The
Intercept that Elbit was preparing to bid on a
contract to build integrated fixed towers on the
U.S.-Canadian border and was eying opportunities in
the Rio Grande Valley.</p>
<p>According to Brown, the Elbit senior director, the
company’s border surveillance work will proceed
indefinitely regardless of the construction of Trump’s
border wall. “Border security has always been a
three-legged stool — manpower, infrastructure, and
technology,” he said. “Infrastructure being the wall.
Technology being the towers, the mobile systems, the
ground detection such as sensors. We’re going to keep
busy no matter what.”</p>
<h3>Mission Creep</h3>
<p>CBP is by far the largest law enforcement entity in
the U.S., with 61,400 employees and a 2018 budget of
$16.3 billion — more than the militaries of Iran,
Mexico, Israel, and Pakistan. The Border Patrol has
jurisdiction <a
href="https://www.aclu.org/other/constitution-100-mile-border-zone">100
miles inland</a> from U.S. borders, making roughly
two-thirds of the U.S. population theoretically
subject to its operations, including the entirety of
the Tohono O’odham reservation.</p>
<p>The agency has received considerable criticism for
its often-brutal treatment of migrants. But a large
percentage of its operations involve routine police
work. Between 2013 and 2016, for example, roughly 40
percent of Border Patrol <a
href="https://www.gao.gov/assets/690/688201.pdf">seizures</a>
at immigration enforcement checkpoints involved 1
ounce or less of marijuana confiscated from U.S.
citizens. Yet not as much attention has been paid to
how the agency uses its sprawling surveillance
apparatus for purposes other than border enforcement.</p>
<p>In 2017, as companies built prototypes for Trump’s
border wall in San Diego, CBP stationed one of its
RVSS towers nearby to monitor political opposition,
citing the “emerging threat of demonstrations,”
records show. The tower deployment lasted for eight
months beginning in September 2017, according to a <a
href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6335897-RVSS-San-Diego.html">federal
contract tender</a> posted online. The only
significant demonstration to occur was a peaceful
rally that greeted Trump in March 2018 as he conducted
a photo-op tour of the wall prototypes.</p>
<p>Making use of the border surveillance tower to
monitor political protests was a seamless transition,
according to the contract tender. “CBP concluded that
the RVSS relocatable tower solution was a logical
choice since placement of this RVSS tower was
essentially an extension of the existing RVSS system
in place along the border in San Diego, and the tower
would also provide surveillance of two areas at one
time,” it stated.</p>
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<p><img
src="https://theintercept.imgix.net/wp-uploads/sites/1/2019/08/GettyImages-72301138-1566503288-e1566503320430-1024x729.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&q=90"
alt="SIERRA VISTA, AZ - OCTOBER 30: The new MQ-9
Predator B, an unmanned surveillance aircraft
system, unveiled by the U.S. Customs and Border
Protection (CBP), takes off at Libby Army Airfield
at Ft. Huachuca October 30, 2006 in Sierra Vista,
Arizona. CBP will use the new MQ-9 Predator
aircraft to patrol the southern border of the
United States in order to stop the illegal entry
of thousands of Mexican nationals and drug runners
who use the vast expanses of the Sonoran desert to
cross into southern Arizona, daily. The new
unarmed plane flew briefly for the press to show
off its surveillance capabilities by pilots of the
contractor, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems.
Agents of CBP will start training on the use of
the aircraft very soon. The Predator will start
full scale flight operations along the
Mexico-Arizona border today. (Photo by Gary
Williams/Getty Images)"></p>
<p class="caption">The MQ-9 Predator B, an unmanned
surveillance aircraft system unveiled by U.S.
Customs and Border Protection, takes off at Libby
Army Airfield at Ft. Huachuca in Sierra Vista,
Ariz., on Oct. 30, 2006.</p>
<p class="caption">Photo: Gary Williams/Getty Images</p>
</div>
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<p>CBP also frequently “shares” its aircraft, including
surveillance drones, with other U.S. law enforcement
agencies. According to <a
href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6336985-CBP-Flight-Logs.html">flight
logs</a> The Intercept obtained via the Freedom of
Information Act, between July 2016 and August 2017,
CBP conducted 15 drone flights for state and local
police spanning 90.2 hours and an additional 53
flights for federal police agencies covering more than
200 hours. The logs provided by CBP failed to specify
the locations of these flights, but additional
documents obtained via public records requests suggest
that CBP drone flights included surveillance of Dakota
Access pipeline protests.</p>
<p>In a statement to The Intercept, a CBP spokesperson
confirmed that North Dakota law enforcement used the
agency’s drone at Standing Rock, claiming that it
helped protect local police equipment from threats.
“The Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) provided a video
feed to the local command center, giving the sheriff’s
department and state police situational awareness of
the protest while minimizing the threat to their
aviation personnel and assets,” the spokesperson
wrote.</p>
<p>During the Standing Rock protests, police and private
security personnel regularly justified surveillance by
casting pipeline opponents as <a
href="https://theintercept.com/2017/06/03/standing-rock-documents-expose-inner-workings-of-surveillance-industrial-complex/">instigators
of violence</a>.</p>
<p>For its part, Elbit has also marketed its
surveillance equipment for use against protesters on
at least one occasion, according to records The
Intercept obtained via freedom of information
requests. In November 2016, a company representative <a
href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6335896-Urgent-Request-for-UAS-Capability.html">offered</a>
a system of wide-area persistent surveillance sensors
to police monitoring Dakota Access pipeline opponents.
Elbit’s description of its product, known as <a
href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6335899-GroundEye.html">GroundEye</a>,
touted it as “a paradigm shift in defense and security
surveillance,” owing to its “ability to move
‘Back-In-Time,’ to simultaneously track and trace the
movements of one or more objects.”</p>
<p>A spokesperson for the North Dakota Department of
Emergency Services said the agency ultimately opted
against purchasing the GroundEye system, though she
declined to state a reason.</p>
</div>
<blockquote data-reactid="215">
<p>“Technologies that are sold for one purpose, such as
protecting the border or stopping terrorists … so
often get repurposed for other reasons, such as
targeting protesters.”</p>
</blockquote>
<div data-reactid="217">
<p>The ACLU’s Jay Stanley says that CBP’s repurposing of
the surveillance tower and drones to surveil
dissidents hints at other possible abuses. “It’s a
reminder that technologies that are sold for one
purpose, such as protecting the border or stopping
terrorists — or whatever the original justification
may happen to be — so often get repurposed for other
reasons, such as targeting protesters.”</p>
<p>That potential is further underscored by a March 2018
email exchange, <a
href="https://shadowproof.com/2019/05/20/border-patrol-museum-demonstrators-targeted-in-crackdown-on-immigrant-rights-protests/">obtained
via open records requests</a>, that shows a
high-ranking Border Patrol officer referring to
political opposition to Trump border policies as a
“threat.” Border Patrol Agent in Charge Christopher M.
Seiler, of the agency’s Rio Grande Valley sector,
emailed more than 30 other supervisory agents to
invite them to a “Large Scale Protest Response
Seminar.” The leader of the seminar was Paul Laney,
the former sheriff of Cass County, North Dakota, who
served as the leading architect of the militarized
police response at Standing Rock.</p>
<p>“The current political climate, uptick in
demonstrations and social media campaigns, along with
the immigration debate almost ensure that RGV will
have large scale protests,” Seiler wrote. “These
protests pose a significant threat to the border, law
enforcement, and our communities.”</p>
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<p><img
src="https://theintercept.imgix.net/wp-uploads/sites/1/2019/08/GettyImages-659603910-1566503371.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&q=90&w=1024&h=692"
alt="Indigenous people from the Tohono O'odham
ethnic group take part in a protest against US
President Donald Trump's intention to build a new
wall in the border between Mexico and United
States, on March 25, 2017, in the Altar desert, in
Sonora, in the border with Arizona, northern
Mexico. / AFP PHOTO / Pedro PARDO (Photo credit
should read PEDRO PARDO/AFP/Getty Images)"></p>
<p class="caption">Indigenous people from the Tohono
O’odham tribal land take part in a protest on March
25, 2017, against President Donald Trump’s intention
to build a new wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.</p>
<p class="caption">Photo: Pedro Pardo/AFP/Getty Images</p>
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<h3>Tohono O’odham Under Occupation</h3>
<p>The impacts of the U.S. border on Tohono O’odham
people date to the mid-19th century. The tribal
nation’s traditional land <a
href="https://psmag.com/social-justice/a-closed-border-gate-has-cut-off-three-tohono-oodham-villages">extended
175 miles into Mexico</a> before being severed by
the 1853 Gadsden Purchase, a U.S. acquisition of land
from the Mexican government. As many as 2,500 of the
tribe’s more than 30,000 members still live on the
Mexican side. Tohono O’odham people used to travel
between the United States and Mexico fairly easily on
roads without checkpoints to visit family, perform
ceremonies, or obtain health care.</p>
<p>But that was before the Border Patrol arrived en
masse in the mid-2000s, turning the reservation into
something akin to a military occupation
zone. Residents say agents have administered beatings,
used pepper spray, pulled people out of vehicles, shot
two Tohono O’odham men under suspicious circumstances,
and entered people’s homes without warrants.</p>
<p>“It is apartheid here,” Ofelia Rivas says. “We have
to carry our papers everywhere. And everyone here has
experienced the Border Patrol’s abuse in some way.”</p>
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<p>Nellie Jo David says the constant surveillance has
profoundly disrupted the cultural fabric of the Tohono
O’odham people, alongside other federal government
intrusions like the Barry M. Goldwater Air Force
Range, built adjacent to the reservation in the 1940s.</p>
<p>“The towers are just one more target on our culture
and way of life,” David says. “We can’t really have
the same ceremonies if there are going to be eyes on
us, coming from an operational control room with
likely a white male agent looking into what it is to
be O’odham.”</p>
<p>Although the Tohono O’odham tribal council has
supported the integrated fixed towers, the majority of
people living near future construction sites have
vocally opposed them. Two of the towers are slated for
the district of Gu-Vo, or “Big Pond,” where Rivas
resides, the westernmost of 11 districts on the
reservation. The Gu-Vo governing council passed a
resolution against the towers in 2017, citing firm
opposition to residents placed under persistent
surveillance and a desire to protect sacred burial
sites, ceremonial areas, and harvesting grounds.</p>
<p>In the process of opposing the towers, Tohono O’odham
people have developed common cause with other
communities struggling against colonization and border
walls. David is among numerous activists from the U.S.
and Mexican borderlands who joined a delegation to the
West Bank in 2017, convened by Stop the Wall, to build
relationships and learn about the impacts of Elbit’s
surveillance systems.</p>
<p>“I don’t feel safe with them taking over my
community, especially if you look at what’s going on
in Palestine — they’re bringing the same thing right
over here to this land,” she says. “The U.S.
government is going to be able to surveil basically
anybody on the nation.”</p>
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<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863.9977
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://freedomarchives.org/">https://freedomarchives.org/</a>
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