You Can’t Just Take Somebody’s Land and Call It Security

By Tammy-Jo Pritchett · August 9, 2026

Opinion

Let me tell you something. If a contractor showed up in my backyard uninvited and started pouring concrete, I wouldn’t be calling a lawyer. I’d be calling the sheriff, my husband, and probably my cousin with the truck. But the Tohono O’odham Nation is doing this the right way, and good for them, because what’s happening to them is exactly the kind of thing that happens when bureaucrats in Washington decide your property is actually their property.

The Tohono O’odham Nation posted “No Trespassing” signs across their reservation lands this week. They had to. Tribal leaders say they’ve been informed that federal contractors might try to roll onto the reservation without permission to start building Trump’s border wall across 62 miles of tribal land. Sixty-two miles. Of land that belongs to a sovereign nation of 37,000 enrolled members. Land the O’odham people have lived on, as their own government puts it, since time immemorial.

And the federal government’s response is basically, “We might send some guys to pour concrete on your sacred sites, but don’t worry, it’s for national security.”

Here’s what I want to know. Since when does “national security” mean you get to ignore property lines? I teach my kids not to walk through the neighbor’s yard without asking. The Department of Homeland Security apparently missed that lesson.

The tribe filed a lawsuit against DHS to stop them from taking reservation land and water for wall construction. Chairman Verlon Jose said the Nation’s legal team has presented a strong case and they’re hopeful the court will approve a preliminary injunction to halt construction while the lawsuit plays out. U.S. District Judge Richard Leon is reviewing it now. So the tribe went to Washington, made their case in federal court, and then came home and put up No Trespassing signs because apparently you can’t trust the government to wait for a judge’s ruling before it starts sending crews onto your land.

Does that sound like a government that respects the rule of law to you? Because it sounds like a government that does whatever it wants and dares you to stop it.

The tribe has been clear: these restrictions apply only to non-tribal people involved in wall construction. Tohono O’odham members can travel their own land as they always have. The Nation even put out a public service announcement on August 7 telling people not to confront anyone they see, just call the Tohono O’odham Police Department. They’re being reasonable. More reasonable than the federal government deserves, frankly.

And here’s the part that really gets me. The Tohono O’odham Nation has cooperated with federal border security measures for decades. Decades. They’ve been on the border since 1854. They know more about what happens on that border than any DHS official sitting in an office in Arlington, Virginia. They’ve worked with the feds on real security. They just don’t want a wall, because they say it would take their land, damage sacred sites, and split apart their communities.

So the government’s answer to a tribe that has helped with border security for generations is to try to seize their land anyway. That’s not security. That’s a land grab with a flag on it.

I don’t care what side of the immigration debate you’re on. If you think the government can just take a sovereign nation’s land because it decided it needs a wall there, then you don’t actually believe in property rights. You believe in property rights when they’re convenient. And that’s not a principle. That’s a preference.

The Tohono O’odham Nation has been on that land since before the United States was a country. If anyone has a claim to it, they do. And they’re telling the contractors to stay out. I hope Judge Leon listens, because if the government can do this to them, it can do it to any of us.

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