Federal contractors are blasting through Kuuchamaa Mountain, a sacred site for the Kumeyaay Nation that straddles the United States and Mexico, as the Trump administration accelerates border wall construction with unprecedented disregard for Indigenous cultural heritage. The destruction comes even as illegal border crossings have plummeted to historic lows, raising questions about the necessity of the rushed construction that has damaged irreplaceable Native American sacred places.
Sacred Sites Under Assault
Norma Meza Calles, a Kumeyaay Nation tribal leader, described the profound spiritual significance of the mountain during a gathering at a Mexican wellness resort in Tecate. "This is sacred to us like a church for you all. The mountain is our healer, our psychologist," she said. "Here is where we gather strength to live in this difficult world." In the Kumeyaay creation story, a shaman transformed into the mountain. As Meza Calles led guests in reflection, the sound of rock crushing interrupted the silence—a stark illustration of ongoing desecration.
Emily Burgueno, a California member of the Kumeyaay Nation, emphasized the deep connection between Indigenous identity and the land. "We feel that in our DNA," she said, noting that "body" and "land" are the same word in the Kumeyaay language. "No one ever consented or supported the use of dynamite on the mountain," she added. Explosions on Kuuchamaa send rocks hurtling down its Mexico side, affecting the Kumeyaay Nation, which consists of more than a dozen tribes in California and Mexico's Baja California.
Unprecedented Destruction Enabled by Legal Waivers
Indigenous leaders say that in the Trump administration's rush to build border walls, contractors are desecrating Native American sacred places and cultural sites at an unprecedented pace, more than 170 years after the international boundary split the territories of dozens of tribes. Barrier construction has ramped up along the 1,954-mile border even as illegal crossings have reached historic lows. Much of the work began this year after the U.S. Department of Homeland Security waived cultural and environmental laws—removing critical protections that had previously safeguarded these irreplaceable sites.
In Arizona, DHS contractors last month carved through a massive 1,000-year-old fish-shaped geoglyph called "Las Playas Intaglio." The rare drawing, etched into the desert floor much like Peru's Nazca Lines, was created on a lava field in what is now the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge. The Tohono O'odham Nation said it had pointed out the site on its ancestral land for contractors to avoid. Tohono O'odham Chairman Verlon Jose said in an April 30 statement, "This was a devastating and entirely avoidable loss," adding, "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."
Tribal Leaders Seek Accountability
U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in a statement that a contractor "inadvertently disturbed" the site west of Ajo, Arizona, on April 23, but it vowed to protect the remaining portion. CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott is talking to tribal leaders to determine next steps. Some Kumeyaay tribal leaders met with DHS officials to urge them to protect Kuuchamaa and are looking into legal action.
Members of the Inter-Tribal Association of Arizona, which represents 21 tribes, traveled to Washington last month to lobby against a 20-foot secondary wall being built along that section of the border, as well as a primary 30-foot bollard wall planned on Tohono O'odham tribal lands. They met with Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, a Cherokee Nation member, who listened but made clear his intent is to build more border walls as fast as possible, the Tohono O'odham Nation said in a statement.
Massive Construction Push Despite Legal Protections
The Trump administration says the barriers are necessary to keep people and drugs from entering the U.S. illegally and wants walls to cover at least 1,400 miles of the border. Trump's "big, beautiful bill" devoted over $46 billion to the effort. CBP has awarded contracts or begun construction on over 600 miles of new border wall, with companion surveillance technology, and a double wall is planned or under construction along another 370 miles.
Desecrating a sacred Native American site on U.S. federal or tribal land is a felony, punishable by imprisonment and fines. In 1992, the National Park Service listed Kuuchamaa Mountain, also called Tecate Peak, in the National Register of Historic Places, giving it limited protection. It noted that "discarding or disturbing the mountain's natural state would be sacrilegious." Yet 34 years later, federal contractors are doing exactly that.
Religious and Environmental Sites Also Threatened
In Sunland Park, on New Mexico's border with Mexico, crews this year set off blasts on Mount Cristo Rey, a pilgrimage site topped with a limestone crucifix. CBP is seeking to seize a strip of the mountain owned by the Roman Catholic Church for wall construction. The Diocese of Las Cruces asked a judge this month to deny the land transfer as an affront to religious liberties and the "faithful who seek to commune with God on Mount Cristo Rey."
In Arizona, where the Patagonia Mountains descend to the border, heavy machinery crawls along freshly graded roads to extend a double wall that could block a wildlife corridor for endangered ocelots and jaguars. Jaguars have long coexisted with the Tohono O'odham, who consider the species "spiritual guardians," Austin Nunez, a tribal leader, said in a 2025 lawsuit that unsuccessfully challenged the DHS waivers.
In western Texas, the federal government in February notified ranchers on the Rio Grande east of Big Bend National Park of its interest in their land that contains canyonland pictographs and petroglyphs, said Raymond Skiles, a retired 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. After community backlash, CBP's online planning map showed the 30-foot-wall plans were scrapped for surveillance technology, patrols and some vehicle barriers.
Continuing Spiritual Practices Under Threat
Rising 3,885 feet above sea level, Kuuchamaa has drawn both Native and non-Native people. Sarah Livia Brightwood Szekely said her father, Edmond Szekely, felt the mountain's healing energy when he arrived in Tecate, Mexico, as a Hungarian Jewish refugee during World War II, and started the wellness resort Rancho La Puerta, which she now runs. "There are all of these people that have a deep relationship with the mountain," she said.
Meza Calles leads walks at Rancho La Puerta to teach guests about Kuuchamaa. She said that traditionally, young men would spend 40 days at its base in a coming-of-age ceremony before becoming warriors or shamans. She said today's rituals are shorter and that people suffering from a death, debt, divorce or other difficulty seek Kuuchamaa's healing. "It's sad they are ruining the mountain," Meza Calles said. "We'll see how far they go. Destiny is destiny. But the fight is not over."
Why This Matters:
The destruction of irreplaceable Indigenous sacred sites and thousand-year-old cultural artifacts represents a profound failure of federal responsibility to protect the nation's heritage and honor treaty obligations with tribal nations. By waiving cultural and environmental laws, the administration has removed democratic safeguards designed to balance security concerns with preservation of sites that cannot be reconstructed or replaced. The demolition of Las Playas Intaglio and the blasting of Kuuchamaa Mountain affect not only Indigenous communities' ability to practice their spiritual traditions but also eliminate pieces of American history that belong to all citizens. With illegal border crossings at historic lows, the rushed construction raises questions about proportionality and whether alternative approaches could achieve security goals without such irreversible cultural losses. The ongoing destruction also tests whether existing legal protections for Native American sacred sites—including felony penalties for desecration—have any meaningful enforcement when federal agencies choose to waive them.