For generations, the Hia-Ced O'odham, Tohono O'odham, and other Indigenous people have traveled to Quitobaquito Springs — a desert oasis they call A'al Vaipia — inside Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Southern Arizona. The site holds ceremonies, prayers, and family history that stretch back further than the international border itself.

Now the federal government plans to build a new 30-foot border wall just 150 feet from the existing fence, cutting straight through this sacred ground. Hia-Ced O'odham elder Lorraine Marquez Eiler, whose ancestors walked roughly 50 miles through the Sonoran Desert to reach these waters, says the project threatens everything her family has passed down. "That's just another slap in the face, as far as I'm concerned, to my ancestors," she said, according to Arizona Luminaria.

This isn't the first time. When an earlier stretch of wall went up between 2019 and 2020, construction crews destroyed nearby O'odham burial grounds. The Quitobaquito pond is also home to several rare and endangered species — including the Quitobaquito pupfish and the Sonoyta mud turtle — that depend on the spring staying intact.

Tohono O'odham Chairman Verlon Jose put it simply, according to Arizona Luminaria: "This is not ours to own. It is ours to protect, to protect for the people."

The Department of Homeland Security should halt construction near Quitobaquito Springs and commit to real, government-to-government consultation with the Tohono O'odham Nation before another shovel touches this ground. Sign the petition to protect Quitobaquito Springs — before a sacred site and a fragile desert ecosystem are lost for good.