Armed Border Agents Arrest Protesters, Bulldoze 200-Year-Old Tree to Build Border Wall

Armed, masked agents stand in front of a bulldozer near the U.S. border with Mexico on Oct. 5, 2026. A 200-year-old tree, which had for weeks been occupied by activists, was bulldozed to make way for Trump’s border wall. Photo: Sierra Club Borderlands

For more than 70 days, dozens of activists and an ancient cottonwood tree on the Arizona–Mexico border have successfully disrupted the construction of President Donald Trump’s ruinous $50 billion border wall. 

Since July, one protester at a time has occupied the cottonwood, or the grandmother tree, as it is locally known. After three other cottonwoods in the area were torn down by government contractors, the remaining grandmother on the U.S. side of the border became the site of a growing protest camp in the remote town of Lochiel, Arizona, and neighboring Sonora, Mexico, where organizers gathered for more than a year to oppose the border wall’s construction.

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On Monday, heavily armed federal agents moved in with force. Activists on the ground estimate that 150 Border Patrol officers — many of whom masked their faces — raided the encampment during the protesters’ morning prayer ceremony. At least 10 demonstrators were arrested, and the 200-year-old cottonwood was bulldozed. 

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As Arizona-based journalist John Washington reported, “agents began cutting the tree while a person was still sitting in its branches. Agents removed that person with a cherry picker and then felled the tree. Screams could be heard as ‘grandmother’ fell around 8:30 a.m.”

In the 48 hours since the early morning raid, land defenders have refused to leave and remain in an ongoing standoff with federal agents. Numerous participants told The Intercept that around 50 people are holding the line against further construction, with dozens more en route following urgent calls to support the encampment and defend the imperiled borderland ecology.

On Tuesday, another tree sitter climbed the last remaining cottonwood standing in the path of the border wall construction, this one on the Mexico side. The tree was briefly occupied by demonstrators in mid-August and, according to a press release from the land defenders, “is once again halting construction.”

The protesters’ aim to stop the construction of two parallel, 30-foot-high border walls ripping through the remote San Rafael Valley. Miles of the double wall structure have already been built in the area. The region is sparsely populated and hardly ever used as a border-crossing site by humans but is renowned as a unique wildlife migration corridor. The cottonwood felled on Monday was the last of four ancient grandmother trees on the Arizona side of the border, which stood in the path of planned wall construction.

“The feeling is that they’re pushing through the construction process as quickly as possible, and they’ll deal with the consequences of the law later.”

Until this week, federal forces had left the encampment and tree sit in relative peace, largely, activists said, because the camp is located on private land. That fact had not changed on Monday. 

“Border Patrol has been coming onto private property since yesterday morning. No warrants are shown,” Rachel, a land defender who withheld her last night out of concern for being targeted by law enforcement, said on a call with reporters on Tuesday. “There’s no legal ground for them to come onto private property. And the feeling is that they’re pushing through the construction process as quickly as possible, and they’ll deal with the consequences of the law later. They just want to push the wall through, regardless of the harm they have to cause to us and to the land in the process.”

According to Rachel and other activists on the ground who spoke to The Intercept, construction workers have moved quickly since the raid, digging a deep trench that threatens the roots of the newly occupied cottonwood on the Mexico side. 

An aerial view of the raid by federal agents on the protesters’ encampment on Oct. 5, 2025.  Photo: Sierra Club Borderlands

A statement on Monday from Belicia Lynch, a member of the De La Ossa family who owns one of the tracts of private property along the border, confirmed the protesters were welcome on her property. “I just want to thank you guys for being out there to not only protect the grandmother tree, but the land itself that many animals and bugs inhabit,” Lynch told the land defenders in the statement. 

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Border Patrol and the Department of Homeland Security have not yet responded to questions from The Intercept.

The federal attacks on the Lochiel encampment came on the heels of a legal victory for anti-border activists in Big Bend, Texas. On Friday, a U.S. district judge granted an injunction to stop all border wall construction in the Big Bend area, including in national and state parks, while the court hears a lawsuit brought by local environmental and community groups. In the order, the judge wrote that the plaintiffs are likely to succeed on at least one of their claims’ merits. 

The standoff between armed federal agents, many of whom are masked to conceal their identities, and border wall protesters on Oct. 5, 2026. Photo: Sierra Club Borderlands

But with practically unlimited funding for his border regime, Trump’s administration can continue fueling money into his violent and destructive border wall. What activists in Lochiel, Sonora, Big Bend, and beyond make clear, however, is that the government’s victory cannot be assumed. Disruptions and interventions are not just possible but also an absolute necessity, and pressure can be applied in an array of directions.

As one Arizona-based Mexican American tree sit participant told The Intercept in August, “The border is everywhere, which means that there are subcontractors and there are power players maybe in your backyard, maybe in your city, maybe an hour drive from where you’re living.”

Rachel, the land defender, made the stakes of the fight clear.

“We have to stop this wall here because the trajectory they’re going on, there is no safety in the U.S. for anyone,” she said on Monday. The call was cut short as news spread through the encampment that federal agents would attempt to remove the tree sitter on the Mexico side. At the time of writing, the grandmother tree in Sonora remains occupied; the fight against Trump’s border wall, and all it represents, has not been lost. 

In a social media post on Wednesday, encampment participants announced a “call to presence” to celebrate the life of the felled cottonwood and continue the anti-border struggle. “If you have been waiting to come to Lochiel, this is the time,” they said. “Let your heavy heart lead you to action!”

The post Armed Border Agents Arrest Protesters, Bulldoze 200-Year-Old Tree to Build Border Wall appeared first on The Intercept.

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