Tomorrow, on Indigenous Peoples' Day, DHS will begin uprooting thousands of saguaro cacti on the Tohono O’odham Nation, marking the first step in what could be the Trump administration’s most contentious border wall battle yet. The tribe is condemning the plans in the strongest possible terms.

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NEW: Early on Aug. 25, the Tohono O’odham Nation received a one-minute notice from Border Patrol. A convoy of contractors — guarded by masked agents — was en route to conduct testing for a coming border wall. The tribe was warned: Do not interfere.

ProPublica sent DHS, CBP and the Border Patrol nearly 30 questions about the government’s surveillance and interactions with tribal members and leaders. The agencies answered none of those questions. Instead, CBP pointed to a statement Commissioner Rodney Scott made in August.

They named the camp Tadai Me:i — roadrunner on fire. The flame was lit on August 9. Campers recorded a drone hovering above them 48 hours later. The observation was among the first of more than 1,000 recorded in handwritten activity logs tribal members shared with ProPublica.

While the two governments hashed it out in court, tribal members on the ground began organizing their own response to the proposed wall. They decided on a ceremonial prayer fire, situated near a traditional border crossing called Ko:li Ki:jig.

The show of force reflected a test of wills that had been building for months. In the preceding weeks, tribal police had booted contractors off the reservation on nearly a dozen occasions — but DHS wasn’t backing down.

It wasn’t just contractors barreling through the Nation in the predawn dark. The convoy was entering the reservation under the armed guard of the Border Patrol’s most elite tactical unit — masked agents dressed in camo and body armor.

In June, the tribe filed a lawsuit to halt the project, alleging violations of tribal sovereignty and trespassing. Recently, however, the stand-off between DHS and the Nation has moved from federal court to a remote border prayer camp in the heart of the Sonoran Desert.

With a footprint spanning from the Sea of Cortez to Southern Arizona, the O’odham for decades staved off a border wall that would sever their binational traditions in part by allowing DHS high-tech surveillance and hundreds of federal agents to roam the Nation.

In July, I took a ride through the Arizona desert with Verlon Jose, chairman of the Tohono O’odham Nation, a sprawling reservation on the U.S.-Mexico border that may soon be changed forever. It was the beginning of an investigation that ProPublica is publishing today. THREAD ⬇️