Political analysts and observers were outraged on Thursday after new reporting revealed that President Donald Trump's Department of Homeland Security bulldozed a 1,000-year-old cultural site in Arizona.
The Washington Post reported that the Trump administration's expansion of the border wall in southern Arizona damaged a Native American archaeological site featuring a nearly 200-foot-long "intaglio," or an etched image of a fish on the land. The report indicates that crews drove heavy machinery over the intaglio, and satellite imagery showed a "disturbance" in the area as crews worked to build more than three miles of new wall.
Lorraine Marquez Eiler, an elder of the Hia-ced O’odham Indigenous people, told the Post that the damage happened last week.
“If someone came to Washington and started destroying all the different sites that people in the United States revere, it’s the same thing for us,” Marquez Eiler told the outlet.
“Those things were made by our ancestors, and it’s hitting home. … For me, it’s an emotional subject,” she added.
Other political analysts and observers chimed in on social media.
"Damn this regime and all its lackeys to hell. This is Taliban level destruction. They should all be in prison," political commentator Libby Spencer posted on X.
"The kind of cultural destruction that’s usually met with global condemnation when done by ISIS or other extremist groups," journalist Emmanuel Felton posted on X.
