Rep. Grijalva Statement on Border Patrol Raid Near Lochiel, Arizona

Nogales, Arizona – Congresswoman Adelita S. Grijalva released the below statement following reports of a U.S. Border Patrol raid and the toppling of a centuries-old cottonwood tree along the U.S.-Mexico border near Lochiel, Arizona. This comes after a U.S. Forest Service announcement posted on its website – without any prior public input or notification – last week closing roads and restricting public access to miles of lands along the U.S.-Mexico border as they proceed with wall construction.   

“Just days after the U.S. Forest Service closed miles of public lands along the border, armed Border Patrol agents conducted a raid that injured protesters and uprooted the last of four century-old cottonwood trees. This is what the militarization of our borderlands looks like – and it’s all because DHS has more taxpayer dollars than it knows what to do with, and is wasting them on a reckless and useless second border wall. Our borderlands are home to unique ecosystems and world-class biodiversity, including some of the last remaining habitat for the Sonoran jaguar in the United States. 

DHS and its private contractors have repeatedly shown they cannot be trusted to protect sensitive cultural and environmental sites. That is why public access and oversight are so critical. Instead, DHS is following the same playbook: shut out the public, evade scrutiny, and recklessly bulldoze our lands. Administrations come and go, but unfortunately the damage the Trump administration is inflicting on our irreplaceable borderlands cannot simply be undone.”