New footage shows contractors building a second border wall are advancing in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, southwest of Tucson, and removing saguaros as they go.
Video shows a large saguaro toppled over in the dirt. Its pale green trunk and thick roots stick out among a pile of vegetation that’s been downed.
Russ McSpadden, southwest border conservation advocate for the Center for Biological Diversity, says he filmed the video on Oct. 23, when wall contractors were removing large swaths of vegetation in anticipation of a second, 30-foot steel bollard wall.
Thousands of saguaros were removed in 2020 for the first 30-foot-tall steel wall. Though some were transplanted back then, most didn’t survive.
McSpadden says the ones that did were torn out again, this month, to make room for the new wall.
“The few that did survive are being transplanted again, so exponentially less chance of survival for those saguaros,” he said.
This month, the Tohono O’odham Nation said they were told wall contractors would also be removing thousands of saguaros on tribal land.
The Trump administration plans to line over 200 miles of the Arizona-Mexico border with two parallel steel walls.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The story has been updated to correct the date when the video was taken showing wall contractors removing large swaths of vegetation in anticipation of a second, 30-foot steel bollard wall.