Indian reservations grapple with border rules
Posted on Sunday, November 19, 2006
TOHONO O'ODHAM INDIAN RESERVATION, Ariz. - The U. S. government didn't consult several Indian reservations along the Mexican border when Congress and President Bush decided to build 700 miles of double-layer fencing along the border.
But the fence would line several Indian reservations, where thousands linger in a political no-man's land, their border territories turned into war zones as undocumented immigrants and narco-traffickers try to get past federal agents.
Tribal leaders now are engaged in a tricky juggling act, trying to stay out of the border fight while not appearing uncooperative with the government's war on terrorism.
"We've become an afterthought all over again," lamented Robert Holden, spokesman for the National Congress of American Indians, the nation's largest Indian lobbying group, representing more than 250 tribes. "Here we are, right on the front lines, yet nobody asks us what we think."
About two dozen reservations abut U. S. borders with Canada and Mexico. Many tribes had lived on traditional lands for hundreds of years when the creation of these borders suddenly placed their members in different countries.
Tribal representatives met last month on the Tohono O'odham reservation in southern Arizona for an unprecedented "Border Summit of the Americas," an attempt to form a united response to the government's increasingly intrusive use of their lands for national security purposes.
This reservation has become the most popular spot for undocumented crossers along the entire U. S.-Mexico border. And the territory's 74-mile frontage on Mexico has come to symbolize the American Indians' border struggle.
About the size of Connecticut, the Tohono O'odham Nation - "people of the desert " - has the second-largest reservation in the country after the Navajos. The tribe's 28, 000 members live widely dispersed on this vast chunk of the Sonoran Desert, home to the iconic saguaro cactus.
After the U. S. Border Patrol successfully clamped down on illegal crossings in San Diego, Calif., and El Paso, Texas, in the 1990 s, migrants funneled into Arizona, their routes eventually taking them across the Tohono O'odham reservation.
Arguing in favor of stronger security, tribal leaders repeatedly have said that as many as 1, 500 undocumented crossers traverse the reservation daily, leaving behind tons of trash - food containers, empty water jugs, clothing. Desperate, many of them break into houses and steal food. Dozens perish.
Drug smuggling is big business here, with hundreds of stolen cars hauling drugs across the border left abandoned.
Leaders have said their modest police force must spend most of its time on border issues, costing $ 3 million a year.
They gradually have turned from being sympathetic to migrants to feeling overwhelmed by what they see as an incessant onslaught. Cooperation with the Border Patrol has increased and the agency has opened two stations on the reservation.
The tribal council backed a Homeland Security Department proposal to erect a reinforced fence, soon to be built, covering the tribe's stretch of the border.
But the tribe's membership is divided. Many adamantly oppose the presence of federal agents and National Guard troops on their land. If security is needed, they said, it should be handled by the tribe itself and not by outsiders.
Mike Flores, a member of the Tohono O'odham legislative council, said many locals feel besieged by growing numbers of border agents.
He pulled out a list of complaints: Agents zoom along tribal roads, tailgating slower elderly drivers. They pull over tribal members, accusing them of smuggling people and drugs. They insult members with ethnic epithets. And they trample on sacred burial sites.
The controversy stretches south of the border, where there is no formal Indian reservation system. About 1, 400 Tohono O'odham members living on the Mexican side no longer have easy access to informal crossings through open cattle gates - a centuries-old practice - without being questioned and even arrested by Border Patrol agents.
"It's absolutely horrendous, how our traditional passage is being cut off," said Arlene Junhamad Juarez, whose family ranch is about 50 yards from the San Miguel gate, the most traveled of four informal border crossings on the reservation.
The agency repeatedly has countered that it tries to be sensitive to tribal concerns.
Members of other American Indian tribes also are worried about the impact of the government's border crackdown and controversial fence plan.
Nearly 7, 000 Pascua Yaqui, also in southern Arizona, for decades have crossed into Sonora, Mexico, home to about 30, 000 Yaquis. Members said that after 9-11, border inspectors started confiscating ceremonial objects such as deer hooves on suspicion they concealed drugs.
Other tribes concluded that reaching an agreement with the government was the best solution to their border-crossing dilemma. For example, the 1, 200-member Kumeyaay tribe near the border south of San Diego received approval for members to cross back and forth through regular ports of entry. The Kumeyaays on the Mexican side, also numbering around 1, 200, must obtain temporary visas allowing them to legally cross north at Tecate.
Some tribes, such as the Kickapoo near Eagle Pass, Texas, readily welcome government agents. They also move to and from El Nacimiento, the tribe's private ceremonial camp two hours south into Mexico.
Members were authorized by President Ronald Reagan to travel back and forth after the tribe obtained federal recognition in 1983. They're also Mexican citizens, which further eases cross-border movement.
Tribal leaders seem indifferent to immigration issues. A handful of undocumented crossers go through the reservation daily, but nobody really minds because they quickly disappear inland, members said.
Concerned about security, some in the tribe would welcome a border fence.
Standing on an embankment about 30 yards up from the Rio Grande, Genaro Lopez said seeing a bigger wall replacing the current flimsy chain-link fence in his backyard would likely turn back drug traffickers who now easily slip across.
Opinions among tribes on how to best deal with the government's security ramp-up tend to vary according to their take on a perennially controversial issue in Indian circles: sovereignty.
A tribe that sees itself as a sovereign nation is likely to question any type of governmental involvement on its reservations. Many who attended the Arizona gathering raised sovereignty as a main argument against allowing federal agents on their territories.
But the U. S. government contends that there's no such thing as tribal sovereignty. Reservations are federal property entrusted to the tribes, said Gary Garrison, spokesman for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. "They can complain really loud, but ultimately the federal government and the Congress have plenary power," Garrison said. "In reality, they have as much say as a state or municipal entity."
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