CBP's Border Patrol SWAT team blockaded Tohono O'odham police to shield border-wall contractors from trespass citations

Before dawn on August 25, 2026, roughly 20 masked, armed U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents -- including the agency's BORTAC tactical unit -- entered Tohono O'odham Nation land in southern Arizona, escorted border-wall contractors to construction sites, and set up a vehicle blockade specifically to prevent Tohono O'odham Police Department officers from issuing trespass citations to the contractors or removing them. Tribal leaders had already warned the contractors they were violating the Nation's own trespassing code; Tohono O'odham Chairman Verlon Jose said the tribe had turned back roughly seven federal contractors in recent weeks and posted "No Trespassing" signs before this larger operation.

CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott publicly defended the operation, saying "Congress funded this work, a federal court has affirmed it, and CBP is carrying it out under the legal authorities that apply." That characterization is not accurate: U.S. District Judge Richard Leon's August 14, 2026 ruling denied the Tohono O'odham Nation's motion for a preliminary injunction against the border-wall construction -- it did not affirm the project, and it did not dismiss the Nation's underlying lawsuit, which remains pending. Tucson Sentinel and other outlets reported that Scott's statement overstated what the court had actually decided.

The blockade is the latest escalation in a monthslong dispute over the second border barrier CBP is building through the reservation under REAL ID Act waivers that bypass ordinary environmental, cultural, and tribal-consultation requirements -- the same program under which a CBP contractor bulldozed the 1,000-year-old Las Playas Intaglio, a site sacred to the Tohono O'odham Nation, in April 2026. The federal entry came less than 24 hours after Jose held a press conference opposing the wall construction.