Overview
- A DHS contractor building President Trump's expanded border wall bulldozed part of a rare Native American ground carving inside Arizona’s Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge, confirmed by a federal employee and new satellite images.
- Crews cut a 60- to 70-foot path across a fish-shaped intaglio more than 200 feet long that archaeologists date to about 1,000 years ago, causing damage experts say cannot be repaired.
- The work is part of a second, parallel barrier overseen by Customs and Border Protection that will clear a wide corridor between walls for surveillance and patrols known as a smart wall.
- Refuge staff and archaeologists had flagged the site and saw boundary stakes in mid-April, yet CBP and DHS have not explained how crews still drove heavy machinery through the marked area.
- O’odham leaders describe the loss as harm to ancestral lands, and the incident is intensifying calls for accountability and for limits on DHS waivers that exempt wall construction from environmental and Indigenous-protection laws.