Last Updated on April 10, 2025
Brenda Norrell informs us that the judge presiding over the Lipan Apache lands right case has ruled in favor of Homeland Security, giving them access to survey Eloisa Tamez land so they can decide on what they want to take for the infamous, ill-conceived, and ultimately redundant Border Wall.
“The action follows the Nazi-style action of Homeland Security in April, voiding all federal laws to build the border wall, including NAGPRA, American Indian Religious Freedom Act and all environmental laws that protect species such as the jaguar and Sonoran pronghorn,” Brenda comments.
“Under the Real ID Act, Homeland Security’s Michael Chertoff has waived 36 federal laws to build the border wall. Defenders of Wildlife, the Sierra Club and Congressmen are asking the Supreme Court to intervene, pointing out that Chertoff has overstepped his bounds and is outside the law, ” she adds.
As for the ruling itself, Reuters explains,
[Tamez] filed a suit against U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff in February in which she claimed the fence would [cause the] “virtually complete destruction of the character and use of the lands for hundreds of years.”
The court said there was no way to tell what the government would do to her property and it had no way of knowing what it might do without access to her land.
“Regarding the specific details of the investigation, the court is quite sympathetic to both parties. Any landowner, not just Dr. Tamez, would like to know the exact details of what the government will be doing on his or her property,” the court ruled in its opinion.
“The government, however, maintains with credibility that it does not know the scope of the investigation that will be required until it has access to the property, placing it in a proverbial “Catch-22.”
Noting that Tamez ancestry has been completely ignored in this case, she and her defense team have yet to make a public statement about the decision. They are, however, expected to fight it.
For more news and background, visit lipanapachecommunitydefense.blogspot.com/, bsnorrell.blogspot.com/search?q=lipan+apache, and icmagazine.org/urgent-homeland-security-preparing-to-seize-apache-lands/
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