🔥 Breaking: Apache Sacred Site on Execution Schedule as Trump Rushes Foreign Mining Deal
🚨 Oak Flat is on Death Row: Trump's Rush to Foreign Miners Continues 170-Year Genocide. How the 60-day window opening any day now could be our last chance to save sacred Apache land
😽 Keepin’ It Simple Summary for Younger Readers
👧🏾✊🏾👦🏾
⏰🏃♂️🏞️ Right now, Apache families are in a race against time to save their most important sacred place from being destroyed forever. Oak Flat is where Apache girls have their special coming-of-age ceremonies for over 1,500 years, but foreign mining companies want to dig a hole so big it could fit the Eiffel Tower 🗼 to get copper underneath.
Two weeks ago, the Supreme Court ⚖️ said the mining could happen, but a judge yesterday gave Apache families 60 more days to try to stop it once the government releases a big report 📄 - which could happen any day now. This is the same pattern that's been happening for 170 years: the government helps companies take Indigenous people's sacred land for money 💰, but Apache families are fighting back just like their ancestors did. ✊🏽👣
🗝️ Takeaways
⚡ Oak Flat is literally on death row - environmental impact statement could drop any day, starting a 60-day countdown
📅 The Supreme Court rejected Apache appeals just 2 weeks ago on May 27, clearing the way for destruction
🏛️ Judge's ruling yesterday (June 9) gave a 60-day window for new legal challenges - our last chance
⛏️ Trump administration racing to approve land transfer to foreign mining giants before courts can stop it
💀 This continues the 170-year genocide pattern: same mountains, same goal (clear Indigenous people for mining profits)
📜 1852 Apache Treaty proves this violates "supreme Law of the Land" - binding legal obligations ignored
⚔️ Apache Stronghold is preparing for civil disobedience if legal options fail and mining equipment arrives
🌊 This is our Standing Rock moment - sacred water sources threatened by extractive industries
Oak Flat is on Death Row: How Trump's Rush to Give Sacred Apache Land to Foreign Miners Continues a 170-Year Genocide
¡Saludos, hermanos y hermanas!
I'm writing to you tonight from the borderlands with an urgent call to action. Right now—this very moment—one of the most sacred sites in Apache culture is on death row, and the execution date is being moved up.
Just two weeks ago, on May 27, the Supreme Court dealt what felt like a death blow to Oak Flat, rejecting Apache Stronghold's final appeal and clearing the way for foreign mining giant Resolution Copper to destroy Chi'chil Biłdagoteel. On this sacred Apache site, young women have received their coming-of-age ceremonies for over 1,500 years.
But here's what gives me hope: we're not powerless, and this fight isn't over.
A federal judge's recent ruling provides a 60-day window after the Forest Service releases its final environmental impact statement—a window that could open at any time. During those 60 days, Apache Stronghold can file new legal challenges, communities can mobilize, and all of us can make it clear that we won't stand by while the U.S. government hands sacred Indigenous land to foreign corporations.
This is our Standing Rock moment. And it's happening right now.
The Sacred Ground Under Attack
Let me tell you what we're about to lose forever.
Oak Flat—Chi'chil Biłdagoteel in Apache—isn't just beautiful land. It's a 6.7-square-mile sanctuary where ancient oak groves whisper prayers to the Creator, where sacred springs bubble with the lifeblood of the earth, where Apache daughters receive their Sunrise Dance ceremonies that connect them to their cultural identity and spiritual power.
This sacred clay, painted on young Apache women during their coming-of-age rituals, is unique and cannot be found anywhere else on Earth. When Resolution Copper's block cave mining creates a crater 1.8 miles wide and 1,000 feet deep—large enough to swallow the Eiffel Tower—this irreplaceable spiritual connection will be gone forever.
Dr. Wendsler Nosie Sr., former chairman of the San Carlos Apache Tribe and leader of Apache Stronghold, describes Oak Flat as "the community's spiritual lifeblood", explaining: "We are asking the courts to protect Oak Flat just as they have protected the sacred places of other faiths across the country."
But beneath this sacred ground lies what makes corporate executives salivate: an estimated 40 billion pounds of copper worth billions of dollars. Resolution Copper—a joint venture of mining giants Rio Tinto and BHP—has spent decades trying to get their hands on what it calls "the second-largest known copper deposit in the world."
Trump's Rush to Destruction
The current moment feels terrifyingly urgent because the Trump administration isn't just planning to destroy Oak Flat—they're racing to do it before courts can stop them.
In April, Arizona Luminaria reported that "The Trump administration signaled it intends to approve a land transfer that will allow a foreign company to mine Oak Flat... before federal courts rule on lawsuits over the project."
This rush to hand over sacred Apache land to foreign mining corporations—while legal challenges are still pending—isn't just legal overreach. It's a continuation of 170 years of violence against Indigenous peoples.
As Nosie Sr. powerfully stated: "The U.S. government is rushing to give away our spiritual home before the courts can even rule, just like it's rushed to erase Native people for generations. This is the same violent pattern we have seen for centuries."
The method Resolution Copper plans to use—block cave mining—would literally undermine Oak Flat until the surface collapses under its own weight. Inside Climate News reports the result would be "a crater 1.8 miles wide and 1,000 feet deep, big enough to fit the Eiffel Tower and nearly as large as the local town."
Imagínense—an entire sacred landscape swallowed by corporate greed.
A Temporary Victory: The 60-Day Window We Have Right Now
Here's where we stand today, and why every day matters: On June 9—just yesterday—U.S. District Judge Dominic Lanza issued a ruling that felt like exhaling after holding your breath for too long. While he denied the immediate halt that Apache Stronghold sought, he granted a crucial 60-day delay after the Forest Service releases its final environmental impact statement.
This means that for now—por ahora—Apache families can continue to gather at Oak Flat for ceremonies, prayers, and that irreplaceable spiritual connection to their ancestors. But as one activist described it: "Oak Flat is still on death row. The Forest Service is just changing the execution date."
The environmental impact statement could be released any day now—possibly this month. Once it's published, the 60-day countdown begins. During that window, Apache Stronghold can file new legal challenges, organize community resistance, and potentially stop this destruction before it becomes irreversible.
Judge Lanza acknowledged the painful irony of forcing "the parties to engage in another stressful, abbreviated round of briefing and litigation activity," recognizing that the legal system itself has become a weapon of exhaustion against Indigenous communities fighting for their most sacred places.
Supreme Court Betrayal: When Religious Freedom Only Applies to Some
Two weeks ago, the Supreme Court delivered a devastating blow to Apache Stronghold's fight, rejecting their appeal and upholding lower court decisions that allow for the transfer of Oak Flat to Resolution Copper.
Justice Neil Gorsuch, in a passionate dissent joined by Justice Clarence Thomas (yes, ironically), called the Court's refusal to hear the case "a grievous mistake" and wrote: "They may live far from Washington, D.C., and their history and religious practices may be unfamiliar to many. But that should make no difference."
This reveals the heart of the matter—while the Supreme Court has repeatedly strengthened protections for Christian churches, Jewish synagogues, and Muslim mosques, when it comes to Indigenous spirituality, those protections mysteriously evaporate.
The Tucson Sentinel noted that Gorsuch "seemingly mocked the lower court's finding that the erasure of the Apaches' holy site was not a substantial burden" on their religious practice.
How can the destruction of an irreplaceable sacred site—one specifically mentioned in Apache prayers and essential to Apache ceremonies—not be a "substantial burden" on religious freedom?
The Pinal Apache Genocide: A Blueprint Still Being Used Today
To understand why Oak Flat's threatened destruction feels so urgent and horrifying to Apache communities, you need to know what happened to the Pinal Apaches who originally called this land home.
Dr. John R. Welch's groundbreaking research reveals what he terms "the Pinal Apache Genocide"—a systematic campaign of extermination carried out between 1859 and 1874 for one purpose: to clear Indigenous peoples from valuable mining land in the exact same mountains where Resolution Copper now wants to operate.
This wasn't the chaotic violence of frontier conflicts. This was calculated corporate warfare, planned in government offices and carried out by professional soldiers.
The numbers tell a chilling story of who the real aggressors were:
35 military attacks on Pinal Apache families and communities
Over 380 Pinal Apaches killed, including women and children
Fewer than 70 non-Apache deaths during the same period across a much larger area
Zero judicial processes or trials—just systematic hunting and killing
According to Welch's documentation, these weren't battles between equals. American forces "stalked and murdered Apache men, women, and children, often as they slept, seldom taking prisoners." Meanwhile, Apache "attacks" were largely defensive raids for food during the winter months when families faced starvation.
The propaganda that justified this genocide sounds sickeningly familiar. An 1859 New York Times article declared:
"The Apache is as near the lobo, or wolf of the country, as any human being can be to a beast... This is the greatest obstacle to the operations of the mining companies."
Sound familiar?
The same dehumanizing rhetoric—that Indigenous peoples are "obstacles" to economic "progress"—echoes in every legislative hearing where Apache voices are dismissed, every environmental impact statement that treats sacred sites as "resources," every corporate presentation that frames Indigenous resistance as impediments to prosperity.
The Unbroken Chain: From 19th-Century Genocide to Today's Corporate Colonialism
Here's what makes this history so crucial to understand today:
Resolution Copper's assault on Oak Flat isn't an isolated modern controversy—it's the direct continuation of the same extractive colonialism that drove the Pinal Apache Genocide.
Resolution Copper is owned by Rio Tinto and BHP, global mining giants worth hundreds of billions of dollars. Their wealth was built on exactly this model: use government violence to clear Indigenous peoples from valuable land, extract the resources, and reinvest the profits to capture more land.
It's colonialism as a business model, and Oak Flat represents its latest iteration.
The parallels are striking:
Then (1860s-1870s): Mining companies lobbied government officials to exterminate the Apaches, who were blocking access to copper deposits. Military campaigns killed entire Apache families. Survivors were confined to reservations while companies claimed their ancestral lands.
Now (2025): Mining companies lobbied Arizona politicians to slip Oak Flat's land transfer into a "must-pass" defense bill. Legal campaigns seek to eliminate Apache resistance through court decisions. Sacred sites are treated as "obstacles" to be removed rather than as Indigenous rights to be respected.
As Welch notes, "Early mining proponents planned and implemented genocide using predominantly public resources (i.e., the U.S. Army). These proponents then rushed in to claim and privatize the spoils. Their 21st-century successors now appear poised to prosper through reinvestment of profits and political influence ostensibly traceable to genocide."
The methods have been refined, but the goal remains identical: to eliminate Indigenous peoples' ability to protect their homelands so that corporations can extract maximum profit from stolen land.
The 1852 Apache Treaty: Legal Proof of Ongoing Violations
Hidden in the archives of Indigenous policy scholarship is a smoking gun that makes Oak Flat's threatened destruction not just morally wrong, but legally indefensible.
The 1852 Treaty between the United States and the Apache Nation—a treaty that remains legally binding today—explicitly promised that the U.S. would "designate, settle, and adjust their territorial boundaries, and pass and execute in their territory such laws as may be deemed conducive to the prosperity and happiness of said Indians."
According to research published in The International Indigenous Policy Journal, this treaty created binding legal obligations that the U.S. has systematically violated for over 170 years. In exchange for Apaches agreeing to live "lawfully and exclusively under the laws, jurisdiction, and government of the United States," the U.S. government promised to respect Apache territorial rights and act in their best interests.
But here's what makes Oak Flat's threatened destruction even more unconscionable: the U.S. never properly designated Apache territorial boundaries as promised in the treaty, yet it has continued to take Apache land anyway. The treaty remains in full legal effect; however, the 2014 Southeast Arizona Land Exchange Act, which authorized the transfer of Oak Flat to Resolution Copper, was passed without any reference to Apache treaty rights.
Since treaties are "the supreme Law of the Land" under the U.S. Constitution, every acre transferred to mining companies, every sacred site destroyed, every decision made about Apache ancestral lands without meaningful Apache consent violates binding federal law.
Our Standing Rock Moment: Why This Fight Matters to Everyone
Oak Flat has become our generation's Standing Rock, and the parallels reveal an unbroken pattern of Indigenous resistance against extractive industries that view sacred lands as nothing more than resources to be exploited.
Both struggles center on sacred water sources threatened by extractive industries. At Standing Rock, the Dakota Access Pipeline threatened the Missouri River. At Oak Flat, Resolution Copper's mine would consume as much water annually as the entire city of Tempe while destroying sacred springs that have sustained Apache ceremonies for over 1,500 years.
Both demonstrate how corporate interests use friendly legislation to bypass meaningful tribal consultation. The Dakota Access Pipeline received fast-track permits. Oak Flat's transfer was slipped into a defense spending bill as a last-minute rider, avoiding years of failed attempts through normal legislative processes.
Most importantly, both show us that Indigenous resistance is never just about one pipeline or one mine—it's about asserting the fundamental right to exist as Indigenous peoples with sovereign relationships to ancestral lands.
NPR's coverage of Standing Rock noted what made that movement extraordinary was its ability to unite "hundreds of tribes all over the country, not just in places that would be directly affected." The same spirit animates the defenders of Oak Flat.
Like Standing Rock water protectors, Apache Stronghold has organized through legal, political, and grassroots action. But they've made it clear that if legal avenues fail and mining equipment arrives, direct action and civil disobedience become moral imperatives.
The spirit that drew thousands to Standing Rock lives on in the fight for Oak Flat. As Dr. Nosie Sr. declared after the Supreme Court's betrayal: "We will never stop fighting — nothing will deter us from protecting Oak Flat from destruction."
What This Means for All of Us Right Now
From my jacalito here in the Sonoran borderlands, I see Oak Flat as a test of our collective soul during the most critical moment in this fight.
We're not watching history unfold—we're living through it, and our actions in the next few weeks could determine whether Oak Flat survives or becomes another casualty of corporate colonialism.
In this moment when the Trump administration is accelerating attacks on Indigenous sovereignty, immigrant communities, and environmental protections, Oak Flat represents everything they're trying to destroy: Indigenous peoples thriving on ancestral lands, spiritual connections that can't be commodified, and communities willing to risk everything to protect what's sacred.
For those of us in Arizona, the destruction of Oak Flat would set a terrifying precedent. If Resolution Copper can obliterate one of the most sacred Apache sites, what other public lands, what other Indigenous sacred places, what other community resources become targets for corporate extraction?
The 60-day window following the release of the environmental impact statement presents a critical opportunity for action, but only if we're prepared to utilize it.
The Resistance Continues: What We Can Do Right Now
Despite the Supreme Court's betrayal, the fight for Oak Flat continues on multiple fronts.
Three federal lawsuits are still working through the courts, including one from the San Carlos Apache Tribe arguing that under their 1852 treaty with the U.S. government, Oak Flat still belongs to the Apache people.
The 60-day delay after the environmental impact statement—which could begin any day now—provides a critical window for action. This time must be used to:
Build broader coalitions like Standing Rock did, connecting Indigenous rights with environmental justice, religious freedom, and anti-corporate movements
Intensify congressional pressure to overturn the 2014 legislation that authorized this land grab
Prepare for direct action if legal challenges fail and mining equipment arrives
Educate communities about the precedent Oak Flat's destruction would set
Here's how we can support Oak Flat's defenders right now:
Direct Support:
Donate to Apache Stronghold and their legal defense fund
Support the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which represents Apache Stronghold in court
Follow and amplify Apache Stronghold's social media campaigns
Political Action:
Contact your representatives demanding they overturn the 2014 land swap legislation
Pressure the Biden administration to halt the land transfer
Support tribal sovereignty legislation at the state and federal levels
Community Building:
Educate your networks about Oak Flat's significance and the urgency of this moment
Connect Indigenous rights with broader social justice movements
Attend solidarity events and teach-ins in your communities
Direct Action Readiness:
Be prepared to travel to Oak Flat if civil disobedience becomes necessary
Learn the protocols for supporting Indigenous-led resistance respectfully
Build local networks that can respond quickly to developments
A Note of Hope and Fierce Determination
Hermanos y hermanas, even in these dark times, I see reasons for fierce hope.
The 60-day delay gives us time to organize. Justice Gorsuch's passionate dissent shows that some in power recognize the injustice here. The legacy of Standing Rock proves that Indigenous resistance can capture the hearts and minds of people across the country.
But hope without action is just wishful thinking.
This is our moment to choose sides in a struggle that will define whether we live in a country that respects Indigenous sovereignty or one that hands sacred sites to foreign corporations for profit.
Here in Southern Arizona, Oak Flat isn't some distant concern—it's our neighbor's sacred site under attack. The same forces destroying Oak Flat threaten our acequias, our community land grants, our connections to place that sustain us through displacement and dispossession.
When Apache families lose Oak Flat, we all lose something irreplaceable: proof that Indigenous peoples can maintain sacred relationships with ancestral lands despite centuries of violence. We lose the possibility that our children might grow up in a world where sacred sites are actually sacred, where Indigenous sovereignty means something real, where corporate profits don't automatically trump everything we hold dear.
The sacred springs at Oak Flat still flow. Apache daughters still receive their Sunrise Dance ceremonies. The Ga'an still dwell in those ancient oak groves. Our job is to make sure they always will.
The question isn't whether this fight is winnable—it's whether we'll stand with Indigenous communities protecting what's sacred, or whether we'll let another generation of corporate colonizers finish what the 19th-century genocide started.
The countdown has begun. Oak Flat is on death row, but the execution date isn't set yet. We have 60 days from when the environmental impact statement drops—maybe less—to save one of the most sacred places in Apache culture.
¡La lucha sigue! The struggle continues, and so do we.
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Horrible. Cultural genocide is a hideous crime, and those guilty of it are the vilest criminals.