04/09/2026
On June 29, 2020, dynamite charges were already set at the end of Tierra del Sol Road. They were never fired.
Near Campo, in the boulder country along the border, Army Corps contractors were clearing the old barrier inside the 60-foot federal strip known as the Roosevelt Reservation to make way for new border wall. Blasting was the fastest way through the granite.
Kumeyaay people and supporters, including the Kumeyaay Original Peoples Alliance and the American Indian Movement, went to the site and stood in the way. Their demands were specific rather than symbolic: put a cultural monitor on the ground, and test the soil before anyone detonates anything. This is land Kumeyaay people have occupied for thousands of years, and ancestral remains and artifacts lie in it.
The charges were pulled and blasting stopped that day. Customs and Border Protection agreed to meet with the groups on July 1, and Kumeyaay bands went into federal court seeking to suspend construction over cultural sites.
It is a rare kind of story: a direct action that produced an immediate, documented result on federal ground, in a place most San Diegans have never driven to.
