A trail of broken treaties

Sitting in a gray chair on the floor of United Nations headquarters, David Garcia clutched the papers with his statement and eyed the wristwatch he’d placed on the desk so it faced him.

He’d taken off his suit jacket. T-shirts and jeans had always been his style.

He listened to indigenous leaders from around the globe talk about the issues facing their communities and about the governments that don’t listen.

He knew what he wanted the world to know about his people, the Tohono O’odhams — about their rights and what President Donald Trump’s border wall would do to his tribe and its land.

Garcia, a tribal member from Arizona, would have the attention of men and women who’d traveled across time zones and oceans for the 10th anniversary of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

He’d practiced for this moment endlessly, up until this very day when the chairwoman of the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues called his name. She had already given one warning, apologizing for the contradiction. She asked people to speak slow enough so everyone would understand, but fast enough so everyone could speak. He had three minutes to speak. Garcia tried not to worry about the strict time limits. But three minutes? How could he possibly say everything he needed to say in 180 seconds?

He cleared his throat, glanced at his watch and began to speak.

A ‘big, beautiful’ wall?

Months before he would sit with world leaders in the U.N. General Assembly Building, Garcia stood with his tribal members back home.

They heard about the march at Sen. John McCain’s Tucson office on social media and wanted to join people standing against Trump’s planned border wall. The wall would cut through about 75 miles of the Tohono O’odham Reservation, dividing the land and further isolating tribal members who live on the Mexican side of the border.

Garcia had followed conversations on Facebook for the latest actions on how to stop the wall. He’d posted his own grassroots action fliers next to notices about memorial services, potlucks and community meetings on a bulletin board at a busy gas station on tribal land.

The Tohono O’odham Reservation sits on an estimated 2.7 million acres in southern Arizona’s Sonoran Desert and stretches across the border, into the Mexican state of Sonora. It is the secondlargest tribe by land holdings in the U.S.

The nation’s tribal council drew national attention earlier this year, when Chairman Edward Manuel and Vice Chair Verlon Jose called on the Trump administration to honor the tribe’s sovereign rights to prevent construction of a 30-foot wall on the reservation.

Garcia, a former Tohono O’odham Legislative Council member, has spent years fighting for tribal sovereignty. He believes there are ways to fight the wall.

Garcia said the administration is counting on indigenous people not knowing their rights or how to exercise those rights. Tribal members are tired, he said — tired of others speaking for them.

Since Trump’s election, talk of a border wall has been less grand. Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto has repeatedly said neither his country nor its people will pay for the wall.

Even Trump’s own budget request shrank to a smidgen of what leaders from both parties have said a wall stretching some 1,900 miles from California to Texas would cost. Senate leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has estimated the wall would cost $15 billion. His Democratic counterparts have said the structure would commit taxpayers to a $70 billion construction bill with a $150 million annual maintenance expense.

Arguments over the legalities seem just as muddied. Trump’s team says the president has the authority to build a border wall under the Secure Fence Act of 2006. The post-9/11 measure allowed the Department of Homeland Security to “take all actions the secretary determines necessary and appropriate to achieve and maintain operational control over the entire international land and maritime borders of the United States.”

Still, federally-recognized tribes have certain property rights under U.S. laws and treaties. Additionally, a lesserknown 2007 U.N. declaration established broad protections of indigenous people’s rights.

Some tribal leaders have argued that it would take an act of Congress to greenlight construction of a wall on Tohono O’odham land. But they aren’t waiting to see what Congress does.

In recent months, strategies for opposing the wall have included a meeting between Tohono O’odham council members and federal Homeland Security officials, a petition to protect internationally recognized environmental reserves along the border, protests, campaigns and legal challenges.

Then there’s Garcia, the former tribal council member who has spent years fighting U.S. Border Patrol actions.

Garcia says some Border Patrol agents have violated tribal members’ human, tribal and civil rights. He said the border wall is just the latest, and perhaps the boldest, U.S. action to expand upon militarization of his tribal lands.

Standing on a narrow sidewalk in front of McCain’s Tucson office on a

James Anaya served two terms as the U.N.’s special rapporteur for the rights of indigenous peoples.

The former University of Arizona law professor also helped draft the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which was adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in 2007.

The declaration established global standards “for the survival, dignity and well-being of the indigenous peoples of the world, and it elaborates on existing human rights standards and fundamental freedoms as they apply to the specific situation of indigenous peoples.”

As rapporteur, Anaya, now dean of the University of Colorado law school, traveled the world promoting good practices, drafting reports on indigenous rights by country and documenting alleged human-rights violations.

In 2012, he presented his report on the United States. The 50-page account of tribal issues across America included statements from Tohono O’odham Nation members.

One statement from the chairman of the Tohono O’odham Nation said that “increased border security and other restrictive measures have made travel difficult across the United States-Mexico border for tribal members and restricted freedom of movement.”

In his final address, at the 2014 Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, Anaya called the declaration a significant achievement with sluggish success.

Anaya, in an interview with The Arizona Republic, said too many government officials and indigenous people remain unaware of the rights outlined in the declaration and the processes in place for exercising those rights.

He says Garcia’s statement is one way to raise awareness of far-reaching indigenous rights recognized by U.N. member states, including the United States.

Three minutes and a sign

On a cool April day, in the U.N. General Assembly Building in New York, Garcia sat under the dome lights of a conference room the size of a football field.

He wore his long silver hair in a ponytail. He thought about what it meant to be at the forum, dedicated to the 10th anniversary of a manifesto adopted by U.N. member countries to enshrine the rights of indigenous people and right wrongs

Back home, Garcia said he doesn’t know what, if anything, will come of his plea.

He says U.N. officials have unparalleled experience addressing border and security issues, which can be complicated by governments and people with competing ideals.

“I think the United Nations has a responsibility to intervene when any kind of activities are going on that violate human rights,” he said.

Garcia had to raise money to help pay for his trip to the U.N. headquarters. Since returning to Arizona, he continues to work with tribal members on both sides of the border. He’s still speaking out, calling even on his own tribal council leaders to be more transparent in their plans to fight the wall.

No one he cares about has asked if his three minutes were worth it.

There’s a phrase, he said, on a welcome sign as you enter the Tohono O’odham Reservation. It’s just a few words. Sic Has Elid g Jewed. “Respect the land,” he said.

David Garcia said the border wall is just the latest, and perhaps the boldest, U.S. action to expand upon militarization of his tribal lands.