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A protest camp in the small border town of Lochiel, Arizona, is seeking to stop federal contractors from building another portion of President Trump’s border barrier with Mexico. At the center of the protest camp is a 200-year-old cottonwood known as a “grandmother” tree, with activists sitting in the tree to physically stop its destruction.

“People are successfully forcing the government to stop, to slow down, or at least change course on border wall construction,” says journalist John Washington, a staff writer for the queer news outlet Lookout and author of multiple books about immigration. “They’ve been very clear that this is both an environmental and a political fight.”

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: We go now to southern Arizona, where protests against another section of border wall construction are ongoing. A protest camp, predominantly led by queer and fem activists in the small town of Lochiel, is seeking to protect ancient cottonwood trees from demolition by federal contractors. At the center of the protest camp is a 200-year-old cottonwood known as a “grandmother” tree. Democracy Now! spoke with one of the activists last evening. This is Refugio.

REFUGIO: We are here protecting a 200-year-old grandmother cottonwood tree. They are sacred to the Tohono O’odham and Yaqui people, who are some of the original stewards of this land. The San Rafael Valley, where these cottonwood trees sit, is one of the most beautiful, most important places for migration of animals, wildlife. It’s one of the freest places, I think, in my heart, that exists still along these borderlands. … There is a binational tree-sit happening. We have folks on the other side of what has not been constructed yet. They’re on the — they’re on the México side, La Noria side. And right now we have this zone, this stretch where the wall has not appeared, has not been constructed, and it’s because we’ve been halting it by being here. We are being surveilled by private security, which ironically is called VisionQuest. We are being surveilled by Border Patrol. We are being surveilled by the Army. They’re the 101st post. And we’re being surveilled by the sheriff’s office, the Santa Cruz Sheriff’s Office.

REFUGIO: We are here protecting a 200-year-old grandmother cottonwood tree. They are sacred to the Tohono O’odham and Yaqui people, who are some of the original stewards of this land. The San Rafael Valley, where these cottonwood trees sit, is one of the most beautiful, most important places for migration of animals, wildlife. It’s one of the freest places, I think, in my heart, that exists still along these borderlands. …

There is a binational tree-sit happening. We have folks on the other side of what has not been constructed........

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