A federal judge appeared unconvinced Wednesday that he should preliminarily block the Trump administration’s effort to add 62 miles of border wall across the Arizona-Mexico border that would cut through the Tohono O’odham Nation Reservation.
Senior U.S. District Judge Richard Leon said the tribe’s request was “extraordinary” and suggested no judge had ever ruled in a case like this, noting the weighty national security interests the government claims require a wall to gain “operational control” of the southern border.
The Tohono O’odham Nation is the largest Indigenous nation located along an international border and historically made up large swaths of southern Arizona and Sonora, Mexico. That status makes it unlikely any case law could directly apply, as any similar reservation is either significantly smaller or on the Canadian border.
The nation says the border wall project would “unilaterally alter” the reservation’s boundaries and result in the destruction of sacred mountain ranges such as the Baboquivari Mountain — the home of the creator god I’itoi — separate O’odham communities and families, interfere with religious rituals and destroy sacred plant and wildlife populations.
Judge Leon’s concerns center on a 1907 Proclamation by President Theodore Roosevelt that established a 60-foot strip of land along the southern border as a “public reservation,” which has allowed the federal government to erect certain structures for border security. In 2004, the government and tribe constructed 52 miles of vehicle barriers within that zone.
The nation says the government would be unable to construct large portions of a 30-foot wall within that 60-foot zone, in part because four mountain ranges straddle the border, or would otherwise require significant blasting that would easily bleed into the reservation. Additionally, more than 60 threatened and endangered species regularly migrate across the border, including the highly endangered jaguar, Sonoran pronghorn and the Mexican gray wolf.
“The migration of animals has everything to do with who we are and why we’re here,” nation Chairman Verlon Jose added. “It wasn’t about the domestic animals — it’s about the wildlife. We speak for them as well; we speak for the four-legged, we speak for all those animals who can’t speak for themselves.” [Ryan Knappenberger]
The Courthouse News keeps rolling below.
Two customers on opposite coasts filed the first class action against Taylor Farms, blaming the lettuce producer and distributor for the spread of a parasitic infection with thousands of confirmed or suspected cases in the U.S.
Californian Kait Gelbspan and New Yorker Victor Granados say in their complaint that the cyclospora contamination and subsequent food poisoning were preventable. The outbreak reportedly began in mid-May from contaminated food at Taco Bells in the Midwest. [Carly Nairn]
Supreme six pack: The Supreme Court agreed to consider whether an Alaskan pilot must surrender his plane for illegally carrying a six-pack of Budweiser to a dry village. [Kelsey Reichmann]
Bad medicine: A Florida man who sought health guidance on ChatGPT sued OpenAI Wednesday, claiming the artificial intelligence chatbot gave him dangerously inaccurate medical advice that led him to delay seeking professional treatment for a pulmonary embolism. [Margaret Attridge]
Screenagers: A teenager, known in court documents as R.K.C., dropped his lawsuit against Meta in which he claimed the tech giant and other social media companies caused a crisis of depression, anxiety and addiction among underage users. [Hillel Aron]
Wrestling out of court: A bombshell civil sex trafficking lawsuit against longtime WWE frontman Vince McMahon won’t head to trial after the parties agreed to resolve the matter outside of court. [Erik Uebelacker ]
Human rights: Ukraine’s war against Russia does not mean every national security suspect belongs in jail while waiting for trial, Europe’s human rights court ruled. [Eunseo Hong]
Who gets the ticket when an autonomous vehicle breaks the law? And what happens to rideshare drivers when the “human” is removed from the equation?
Hold on to your butts as we take a ride through the self-driving car revolution to see if the future of transportation is a techno-utopia or another way for Big Tech to grab the wheel of our lives.
Danny Masterson asks appeals court to overturn rape conviction
Trial for mother accused of murdering 2-year-old son ends in mistrial
Trial wraps for Georgia teacher accused in 2-year-old son’s death
Trump demands review of scientific manual used by federal judges
ICE makes arrests at NYC immigration court despite court ban
Melania Trump files for sanctions against journalist Michael Wolff
Utah man charged with hate crime after attack on Muslim mall employee
Fuel reduction: A logging project intended to reduce wildfire risk in Southern Oregon may proceed after a federal judge declined a pair of conservation groups’ request to halt it. [Monique Merrill]
» District of Arizona: A federal court in Arizona denied an insurer’s motion for judgment on the pleadings in a contract dispute brought by several professional models whose image and likeness were used without their permission by a strip club.
» Eastern District of Pennsylvania: A federal court in Pennsylvania allowed a consumer’s negligent misrepresentation claim to proceed against a pet food container manufacturer in her proposed class action alleging her kitten suffocated after opening the locked container and becoming trapped inside.
» District of New Hampshire: A New Hampshire federal court partially denied attorney and journalist Seth Abramson’s motion for summary judgment against the 1st Amendment Praetorians — a right-wing, self-described security and intelligence group — its founder and one of its members suing him for defamation, conspiracy and false-light invasion of privacy after he wrote that they were “militant extremists involved in the effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
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