Protests08 October, 20262 min read
Federal Agents Raid Lochiel Encampment, Cut Down 200-Year-Old Cottonwood on Arizona-Mexico Border
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Federal agents raided Lochiel encampment and cut down a 200-year-old cottonwood. Activists had camped for about two months to block border-wall work; arrests followed.
Tree felled, arrests made
Federal agents moved in with force on Monday and raided an encampment near the 200-year-old cottonwood tree known as the grandmother tree on the Arizona–Mexico border, activists said.
“agents began cutting the tree while a person was still sitting in its branches,” and agents removed that person with a cherry picker before the tree was felled.
Arizona’s Lochiel, about 85 miles southeast of Tucson, became the focal point as a video posted just after 9 a.m. Monday captured people screaming as the massive tree crashed to the ground.
Border Patrol arrested about a dozen people, according to Erick Meza, borderlands coordinator for the Sierra Club, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokeswoman Jessica Turner confirmed the removal of the tree without acknowledging the law enforcement action.
Activists said the confrontation came after they had camped in the tree for more than two months to try to save it from destruction, and AZFamily said the felled tree was estimated to be about 200 years old.
Warrants disputed, tactics condemned
Rachel, a land defender who withheld her last night out of concern for being targeted by law enforcement, said on a call with reporters that “No warrants are shown.” Rachel also said Border Patrol was “pushing through the construction process as quickly as possible,” while she warned that the government would “deal with the consequences of the law later.” Erick Meza said Border Patrol arrested about a dozen people, and he described the raid as a crane operation that pulled a demonstrator from the branches about 60 feet above the ground before the tree was toppled.
AZFamily quoted a protester saying, “50 federal agents ... masked federal agents raided the camp on private property and then surrounded the tree,” and it said the confrontation included a cherry picker to remove the protester before cutting the tree. The Arizona Daily Star reported that Santa Cruz County Sheriff David Hathaway said his office did not take part in Monday’s raid and that “Nobody told me,” he said, describing it as a surprise after it was over.
Protests persist, wall work continues
Protesters said the standoff did not end after Monday’s raid, and The Intercept said land defenders refused to leave and remained in an ongoing standoff with federal agents. A protest against the Trump administration’s border wall construction remained ongoing in Lochiel, and tents were visible in the tall grassland Wednesday morning. Contractors were placing panels of the big steel wall behind Chabbott, and the final project would see two steel walls spaced about 60 feet apart and running parallel to each other for miles.
Organizers gathered in Lochiel, Arizona, and neighboring Sonora, Mexico, to oppose the border wall’s construction, and protesters’ aim was to stop construction of two parallel, 30-foot-high border walls. A new tree sit was underway farther down the road along the border in Mexico, where a protester attempted to stop construction by locking themselves onto a hauling truck.