Democrats Feature American-Indian Tribe Known for Rampant Drug-Smuggling to Speak Against Border Wall

• The Democratic-controlled House Natural Resources Committee held a hearing on Wednesday regarding the southern border wall’s impact on the surrounding environment.
• One of the hearing’s featured speakers was Ned Norris, the chairman of the Tohono O’odham Nation, who spoke out adamantly against construction of the wall through his tribe’s lands.
• The tribe, however, is known among law enforcement for its rampant participation in the drug trade, with one Border Patrol agent suggesting as many as 90% of its members are involved in smuggling activity. 

House Democrats invited the leader of the Tohono O’odham Nation to speak out against construction of the U.S.-Mexico wall, despite the tribe’s long history of cross-border drug smuggling. 

The House Natural Resources Committee held a hearing on Wednesday titled “Destroying Sacred Sites and Erasing Tribal Culture: The Trump Administration’s Construction of the Border Wall” which focused on the border wall’s environmental impact. A featured speaker at the hearing was Ned Norris, who serves as the chairman of the Tohono O’odham Nation, an American Indian tribe located around the Arizona-Mexico border.

Norris voiced his opposition to the wall, noting that construction of a barrier would split their territory, which expands across the Mexican border, and would purportedly desecrate their cultural and sacred sites.

“There’s a lot of tribe members who are deeply involved with the cartel here in Mexico,” said Matthias Estevan, an O’odham Nation member living south of the border, for the May 2019 report. Estevan himself said cartel members have approached him with lucrative deals, even offering to pay him $10,000 just to drive a truck with a hidden compartment to the U.S. side of the reservation.

How rampant is smuggling among members of the O’odham Nation? While it’s difficult to gauge given the nature of criminal activity, one Border Patrol agent estimated in a June 2019 report that as many as 80% to 90% of members were involved in drug or human smuggling.

Despite increased enforcement efforts along the U.S.-Mexico border, members of the tribe are allowed easy access through special gates to criss-cross the border. However, law enforcement argues that members of the O’odham Nation are abusing this privilege to make big bucks from Mexican drug cartels.

Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb, whose jurisdiction includes a section of the O’odham Nation’s reservation, has become nationally recognized for his personal fight against drug smugglers. Lamb last year said that traffickers who push methamphetamines and marijuana are aware that they can’t be charged if they are on tribal territory, and many of them make use of the reservation’s porous border.

In a statement provided to The Daily Caller News Foundation ahead of Wednesday’s committee hearing, Arizona GOP Rep. Paul Gosar spoke on the need for a border wall to prevent not only illegal immigration but also to crack down the level of drug smuggling currently seen in the region.

“Donald Trump promised the American people he would build a wall along our southern border,” Gosar said. “It’s refreshing to see a President who actually keeps his promises! Arizona’s border lands and environmental laws are exploited by drug cartels, human traffickers, and illegal aliens to gain entry into our Country. In order to protect our communities from these vicious criminals, we need to build a wall.”

As for Norris, he reiterated his tribe’s deep opposition to a border wall through the House committee hearing.

“We will continue to work on the relationship [with the government], we will continue to do what is necessary — short of building a wall. We will never agree to a wall that is being built,” Norris said.