TECATE, Mexico — As white sage smoke rises into the air, Norma Meza Calles brings visitors at a Mexican health retreat into a half-circle toward Kuuchamaa Mountain, asking them to shut their eyes and sense its spiritual energy.
“This is sacred to us like a church for you all. The mountain is our healer, our psychologist,” explained Meza Calles, a tribal leader from the Kumeyaay Nation who shared that according to their creation story, a shaman became the mountain. “Here is where we gather strength to live in this difficult world.”
She then requests a quiet moment of contemplation. However, the peaceful atmosphere breaks with the sound of crushing stone. Federal contractors from the United States have been using explosives and heavy equipment on Kuuchamaa, which spans both nations, to clear space for additional border wall segments along the U.S.-Mexico boundary.
Tribal leaders across the region report that during the administration’s accelerated border wall construction efforts, contractors are damaging Native American holy sites and cultural locations at an extraordinary rate, more than 170 years after the international border divided the ancestral territories of numerous tribes.
Wall construction has intensified along the 1,954-mile border despite illegal crossings dropping to record-low numbers. Much of the work started this year following the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s decision to bypass cultural and environmental protections.
In California, blasting operations on Kuuchamaa launch debris down the mountain’s Mexican slope.
“We feel that in our DNA,” explained Emily Burgueno, a California member of the Kumeyaay Nation, noting that “body” and “land” share the same term in their native language. Several tribal representatives have met with DHS officials requesting protection for Kuuchamaa and are considering court action.
“No one ever consented or supported the use of dynamite on the mountain,” Burgueno stated.
The nation includes more than twelve tribes spanning California and Mexico’s Baja California region.
In Arizona, DHS contractors carved through an enormous 1,000-year-old fish-shaped ground drawing known as “Las Playas Intaglio” last month. The uncommon artwork, carved into the desert surface similar to Peru’s Nazca Lines, was made on a volcanic field within what is now the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge.
The Tohono O’odham Nation reported that it had identified the location on their ancestral territory for contractors to avoid.
“This was a devastating and entirely avoidable loss,” Tohono O’odham Chairman Verlon Jose stated in an April 30 announcement. “There is nothing more important than our history, which is what makes us who we are as O’odham. The site was also an irreplaceable piece of the United States’ history, one none of us can ever get back.”
U.S. Customs and Border Protection responded in a statement that a contractor “inadvertently disturbed” the location west of Ajo, Arizona, on April 23, but pledged to safeguard the remaining section. CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott is consulting with tribal representatives to decide future actions.
Representatives from the Inter-Tribal Association of Arizona, representing 21 tribes, went to Washington last month to oppose a 20-foot secondary barrier being constructed along that border section, plus a primary 30-foot bollard wall planned for Tohono O’odham tribal territory. They met with Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, a Cherokee Nation member, who listened but emphasized his commitment to construct additional border barriers as quickly as possible, according to a Tohono O’odham Nation statement.
The administration argues these barriers are essential to prevent people and drugs from illegally entering the U.S. Officials want walls covering at least 1,400 miles of the border.
The president’s “big, beautiful bill” allocated over $46 billion to this initiative.
CBP has granted contracts or started construction on more than 600 miles of new border wall, along with accompanying surveillance equipment. A double barrier is planned or being built along an additional 370 miles.
In Arizona, where the Patagonia Mountains meet the border, heavy equipment moves along newly prepared roads to extend a double wall that might obstruct a wildlife pathway for endangered ocelots and jaguars. Jaguars have historically coexisted with the Tohono O’odham, who view the species as “spiritual guardians,” Austin Nunez, a tribal leader, stated in a 2025 lawsuit that unsuccessfully contested the DHS exemptions.
In Sunland Park, along New Mexico’s border with Mexico, construction crews detonated explosives this year on Mount Cristo Rey, a religious pilgrimage destination crowned with a limestone cross.
CBP wants to acquire a section of the mountain owned by the Roman Catholic Church for wall construction. The Diocese of Las Cruces requested a judge this month to reject the land transfer as an attack on religious freedoms and the “faithful who seek to commune with God on Mount Cristo Rey.”
In western Texas, the federal government notified ranchers along the Rio Grande east of Big Bend National Park in February of its interest in their property containing canyon rock paintings and carvings, according to Raymond Skiles, a former Big Bend National Park ranger.
“There are pictographs, paintings of shaman figures and various things that we don’t know how to interpret,” Skiles said, describing the artwork on his family’s ranch property.
Following community opposition, CBP’s online planning map indicated the 30-foot-wall plans were abandoned for surveillance technology, patrols and some vehicle barriers. A section in the national park and adjacent Big Bend Ranch State Park would depend on technology only.
CBP states it acknowledges the significance of natural and cultural resources and works to reduce construction impacts, including keeping drainage openings available in wildlife corridors for animal movement. Illegal border crossings have created litter, pollution and damage to sensitive habitats, the agency claims.
CBP also reports that 535 miles of remote, challenging border terrain will depend entirely on detection technology.
Many tribes would favor that approach over walls.
Border tribes “are all experiencing the same tragic desecration of our cultural and sacred sites,” said Burgueno, chair of the Kumeyaay Diegueño Land Conservancy, a nonprofit organization in California working to protect Kumeyaay territories. “This is a great example of the federal government not following federal laws.”
Damaging a sacred Native American location on U.S. federal or tribal property constitutes a felony, with penalties including jail time and monetary fines. In 1992, the National Park Service added Kuuchamaa Mountain, also known as Tecate Peak, to the National Register of Historic Places, providing it with limited protection. The listing observed that “discarding or disturbing the mountain’s natural state would be sacrilegious.”
Standing 3,885 feet above sea level, Kuuchamaa has also attracted non-Native individuals.
Sarah Livia Brightwood Szekely reported that her father, Edmond Szekely, experienced the mountain’s healing power when he came to Tecate, Mexico, as a Hungarian Jewish refugee during World War II, and established the famous wellness resort, Rancho La Puerta, which she currently operates.
“There are all of these people that have a deep relationship with the mountain,” she explained.
Meza Calles guides walks at Rancho La Puerta to educate visitors about Kuuchamaa.
Historically, young men would spend 40 days at its base during a coming-of-age ritual before becoming warriors or shamans, she explained. Current ceremonies are briefer. People dealing with death, financial troubles, divorce or other challenges seek Kuuchamaa’s healing, she noted.
“It’s sad they are ruining the mountain,” she said. “We’ll see how far they go. Destiny is destiny. But the fight is not over.”
