Arizona Border Wall: Ancient Cottonwood Felled, 10 Arrested
U.S. Border Patrol agents raided a protest encampment in Lochiel, Arizona, early Monday, arresting at least 10 people and cutting down a roughly 250-year-old Fremont cottonwood tree to clear the way for a double border wall. The tree, the last survivor of an ancient grove, had been defended around the clock for 71 days and had become a symbol of resistance to the Trump administration’s border barrier expansion.
According to KJZZ’s Fronteras Desk, agents entered the camp on private land around 6:30 a.m. MST while activists were gathered for a sunrise prayer ceremony. A tree-sitter was removed from the branches using a cherry picker, and the cottonwood — nicknamed “the Grandmother” — was felled around 8:30 a.m. as screams could be heard in the background.
Conflicting Accounts of the Arrests
The number of people detained remains disputed. KJZZ reported at least 10 people were arrested, plus 10 more cited and released. LOOKOUT reported at least 20 people were arrested, with ten taken to the Sonoita Border Patrol station and another ten cited and released. Arizona Luminaria reported at least 12 arrests as of 8 a.m. One activist’s paperwork showed a Jan. 6, 2027, court date for a citation for violating a closure order.
Activists described a violent confrontation. Kate Scott, a key organizer and co-founder of the Madrean Archipelago Wildlife Center, told LOOKOUT, “We have been raided, assaulted, battered, bruised, bleeding by the Border Patrol agents.” An activist who uses the name Hoops said agents “were extremely violent and rough with our comrades. They were kicking us while we were on the ground. They had knees on the necks.”
Those allegations — including claims that agents pushed defenders into a barbed-wire fence — come from activists and a press release and have not been independently verified. Activists also said agents ignored demands to present a warrant; U.S. Customs and Border Protection did not respond to questions about the arrests or whether agents had a warrant to enter the private property.
A Long Fight to Save the Grove
The confrontation was the culmination of a months-long standoff. Three other cottonwoods directly in the wall’s path were knocked down by excavators in late July, prompting border residents to occupy the final tree on July 29. LOOKOUT, which documented the encampment in August, described a predominantly queer and femme camp of more than 50 people, with a protester perched more than 50 feet up in the canopy.
In an August interview, Scott called the trees “grandmothers” after an Indigenous women youth-led solstice ceremony, and said the group had rallied around protecting them. “All of it has pushed ordinary people to take extraordinary measures to put their lives on the line to protect a tree that has become a symbol of the future we want,” said Erick Meza, Borderlands coordinator for the Sierra Club’s Grand Canyon Chapter.
The Project and Its Costs
The wall through the San Rafael Valley — a biodiversity hotspot about 25 miles east of Nogales — is part of a planned 27-mile span of double wall. The two parallel 30-foot steel barriers enclose an approximately 60-foot buffer zone, described by activists as a “dead zone.” The contractor is Fisher Sand & Gravel. The first 27-mile span was contracted for $309 million, part of an Arizona contract worth about $1.5 billion, with total costs estimated at around $500 million.
CBP confirmed the removals in a statement. “U.S. Customs and Border Protection identified four cottonwood trees on federal land in Lochiel, Arizona, that needed removal for planned border wall construction,” a spokesperson said. “As of Oct. 5, 2026, all four trees have been removed.” The agency added that “illegal immigration itself poses significant environmental challenges.”
Environmental and Legal Questions
The project has advanced despite record-low migrant apprehensions border-wide and researchers’ findings that vanishingly few people cross in the remote San Rafael Valley. Environmental groups say the double wall is severing wildlife corridors used by jaguars, black bears, coatimundi and pronghorn. Dinah Bear, a Tucson environmental attorney and former general counsel for the Council on Environmental Quality, said the administration waived 66 federal laws — and 24 laws plus 10 sets of regulations governing contracting — to build the wall.
The Lochiel standoff is one of several parallel disputes. The Tohono O’odham Nation has issued a no-trespassing order against nontribal border wall contractors on its land, and in late September Gov. Katie Hobbs sided with the tribe in a federal border wall lawsuit. The National Park Service also denied an activist group’s request to place water stations along the Arizona-Mexico border — the first such denial in more than two decades.
What’s Next
By Monday afternoon, more than 50 people had gathered at the federal courthouse in downtown Tucson in support of those arrested. Six were released in Nogales, while the remaining four were transferred to the Tucson Border Patrol station, according to activists.
Paula Miller of the Good Neighbor Interfaith Coalition told the rally, “Grandmother was killed this morning. Our movement to stop the border wall continues.” Scott struck a similar note: “We are resolute. This movement is not going anywhere. They have cut down our grandmother, but her roots are within us.”
With wall construction ongoing and legal challenges pending, the fight over the San Rafael Valley — and the broader expansion of border barriers — is far from settled.