Sometime mid-May I heard from my friend, Maria Singleton, in the borderlands of Ajo, AZ . Maria shared that although the current administration said that in building a second border wall they'd avoid a 1000 year old etching on the Sonoran desert floor, they didn’t. Reports were also coming in that an ancient water source is in the line of a second border wall being constructed. She wondered if I’d be interested in creating a mural to address this. My first scouting trip to Quitobaquito occurred a couple weeks later .
I met with representatives from the International Sonoran Desert Alliance representing the Tohono O’odham Nation, Mexico (O’odham people live on both sides of the border) and the US, employees at Organ Pipe National Monument (where Quitobaquito is located) and concerned citizens of Ajo. I returned with my son Jamaal roughly a month later to capture images for a mural focusing on O’odham elder Lorraine Eiler at the ancient desert oasis thought to have been present since the Pleistocene, home to 3 endangered speices two of which are found only there. Lorraine’s family is originally from that area.
Thank you to Zoë Gentry, Digital Outreach and Education intern at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument who first took me to Quitobaquito and educated me on the flora and fauna of the area. Thank you Maria Singleton for the invitation to learn of this situation and to engage the community, Scott Warren, and to Jamaal for the assist; thank you Lorraine Eiler and to the countless kind souls who took us in over the past couple months. Thanks to Hop David for the wall.
The park service road to Quitobaquito closed today (07.27.26), in preparation for the second border wall. On my first visit in May I questioned people on why a second wall was needed. Typical of the current administration, no rationale has been given as the number of illegal border crossings has decreased consistently since the construction of the first border wall in 2020.
Construction of the first border wall drained the pond and despite fears of it not returning, the aquifer feeding the spring wasn’t depleted and the pond refilled. This time the pond is in the path of the 2nd border wall.
To learn more about the threat to Quitobaquito, check out the July 24, 2026 Guardian article on Quitobaquito by Douglas Main.
