Stand off with Border Patrol, National Park Service ends in scuffle with Indigenous-led demonstrator

A peaceful, Indigenous demonstration against the border wall in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument ended with demonstrators in a stand off and physical altercation with U.S. Border Patrol agents and National Park Service officers Monday afternoon.
Construction was brought to a halt for most of the day. As a light drizzle fell around 8:45 a.m., about two dozen O'odham demonstrators and non-Indigenous supporters marched down an access road along the border, pushing past construction security and stopping at a site where new panels are being erected for the Trump administration’s 30-foot, steel bollard wall.

The action was put by together the O'odham Anti Border Collective and Defend O'odham Jewed, a network of Akimel O'odham, Tohono O'odham and Hia-Ced O'odham organizers — not all of which are federally recognized tribes.

Ancestral O'odham land spans the Phoenix area and Tucson and continues across the border into neighboring Sonora. Speaking in front of a huge canvas panel reading "Borders = Genocide, no wall on O'odham land," one Akimel O'odham demonstrator said they'll keep returning to protect it.

"I hate that word, protest," she said. "We are not activists, we are not protesting, we are O'odham and this is O'odham land."

https://news.azpm.org/p/news-topical-border/2020/9/22/180618-stand-off-with-border-patrol-national-park-service-ends-in-scuffle-with-indigenous-led-demonstrators/