A Call for Broader NLG Legal Observer Support in Solidarity with Indigenous Land Protectors

by Natalie Koski-Karell, NLG-SF Bay Area/San Diego

Over several weeks in 2020, Kumeyaay community members and allies built up a peaceful prayer camp along the U.S.-Mexico border wall about an hour east of San Diego. Situated in their ancestral territory which extends approximately 75 miles north and south of the border, the Kumeyaay Defense Against The Wall group called their settlement “Camp Landback”. To streamline wall construction, federal courts were waiving environmental laws and skirting tribal consultation practices. It is well-documented that some of these areas qualified as sensitive environments, sacred sites, and even grounds for endangered species. 

On September 21, 2020, the Bureau of Land Management approached Camp Landback with an emergency closure order targeting 580 acres. The Camp claims that this order was made specifically to evict its activists. The order had been enacted two days prior but was issued to the Camp within an hour of threatened eviction or arrest. 

That morning, I was watching these events unfold live on Kumeyaay Defense Against the Wall’s Instagram account. I immediately dropped a note in the chat offering to drive out to observe the eviction, as a NLG Legal Observer. I received words of encouragement and one person at the Camp started a direct chat with me to provide directions and updates as I traveled there. When I arrived, there was one road in and out, blocked off by barricades and swarming with state police, Bureau officers, and Border Patrol. Notebook in hand, I approached the barricade and asked where the Camp was located. They told me that the Camp had dispersed, and that two activists had taken into custody. I was given a copy of the order and the phone number of the person who had issued it; they never responded to my calls. By the end of the day, a bail fund for the activists would be pooled. I offered my support to the group but there wasn’t much else I could do. Sacred site conservation is extremely difficult to achieve not only because the courts and legislators are unfamiliar with Indigenous spiritual traditions, but because in many cases the U.S. government has been restricting access to sacred sites and thus engaging in coercion against their religious freedom.

The Kumeyaay Defense Against the Wall had successfully prevented approximately a mile of border wall construction, through a form of protest that more closely resembled ceremony. They engaged often with the authorities, probing the officers about their intentions and beliefs. I feel that other protesters have a lot to learn from their tactics, and their efforts have been reflected in several other border wall protests and subsequent sacred site protection actions. But this protest format is not new; the U.S. government has engaged in sacred site desecration since before the Republic was formed. 

In July 2020, a group of Indigenous protestors stood up against the Mount Rushmore monument in the Black Hills mountains and the #LANDBACK movement gained historic traction online, even in non-Indigenous circles. The hashtag spread rapidly, and conservations and actions around giving land back to Indigenous peoples of the so-called United States are taking place more than ever before. The most common method of ceding land currently involves a land trust, as in the case of the Western Rivers Conservancy’s purchase of land in Big Sur and transferred legal ownership to the Esselen Tribe of Monterey County. Another—perhaps more efficient—way of generating Land Back reparations could be to utilize the conservation easement tool. By putting land with important natural, agricultural, or historic resources under conservation in perpetuity, private landowners receive a tax deduction as if they had made a charitable contribution [see IRC 170(h)). These easements are often donated to a land trust or government agency, but what if they were donated to the nearest tribe? Or, alternatively, what if the money saved on this easement was to go directly to the nearest tribe? The tribe could then use these monies to purchase land elsewhere, protect a sacred site, or use towards other economic development projects. Other methods of ceding colonized territory back to its rightful owners, both within and outside of American property law, have been advanced by indigenous rights groups for many years.

I encourage Legal Observers to keep their eyes out for sacred site protests/ceremonies near them, and offer to Legal Observe especially when the authorities get involved. Until then, may the Land Back movement continue to gain traction and pursue all viable options to generate reparations.