U.S. Border Patrol agents arrested about 18 people on Oct. 5 and Oct. 6 near a protest camp in Lochiel where activists for more than two months kept watch around a century-old cottonwood tree to prevent the construction of a double border wall in the San Rafael Valley.
Armed federal agents raided the camp, about 25 miles east of Nogales, in the early hours of Oct. 5.
Some 12 people were detained that morning. Six more people were detained the next day. By noon on Oct. 7, all had been released, Erick Meza, the Sierra Club's border coordinator, told The Arizona Republic.
The situation is "ever-evolving," said Meza, who was on the ground when armed agents broke up the encampment on Oct. 5 and cleared the area so constructors could knock down the last
of four old-growth trees that the agency marked for removal.
A person was still in the tree when workers started cutting it down. Officers used a crane to pull the tree-sitter from the branches.
"It's upsetting," Meza said. "And it's really hard to know what's going to happen next."
Named "Tierra Libre" by the self-described "land defenders," the protest camp is on private property.
Activists on the ground said Border Patrol agents did not provide a warrant. The cottonwood tree was at the edge of that property and inside the Roosevelt Reservation, a 60-foot-wide strip of federal land that runs on the side of the international border from California to New Mexico. Most protesters were arrested on that piece of federal land.
"We are still trying to figure out why people (are) getting different treatment (from the Border Patrol) and why some of them are being held longer than the other ones," said Meza, who helped coordinate and track the detentions and releases.
In theory, each would get cited for violating the U.S. Bureau of Land Management closure order, he said, but there hasn't been a standard. On Oct. 5, all protesters who were detained, except one, were processed the same day and given citations.
Some people were picked "on the spot," next to the encampment, and released a few hundred feet away from the place, Meza said. Others were taken to the Sonoita or the Tucson station, and spent the night in detention. Some people are believed to have been taken to Florence, he added, but they are still getting details confirmed.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection did not respond to questions from The Republic about the number of detentions, the nature of the charges and the claims about a lack of warrant.
Protesters processed in Sonoita were released at the McDonald's in Nogales. People processed in Tucson were released at a McDonald's in that city. Meza said the process looked purposefully "disorganized."
The raid, detentions and tree removal took just a week after the U.S. Forest Service issued an emergency closure order and blocked public access to the border wall work zone in the San Rafael Valley. The Bureau of Land Management issued a similar order last month.
Clara Migoya covers agriculture and water issues for The Arizona Republic and azcentral.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Border Patrol arrests, detains 18 wall protesters near cottonwood tree
