In United States v. Ortega, (D AZ, Jan. 19, 2022), an Arizona federal district court reversed its earlier ruling (see prior posting) and allowed Amber Ortega, a member of the Tohono O’odham Nation, to raise a Religious Freedom Restoration Act defense in her trial on two misdemeanor charges for violating a closure order at the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. Ortega was protesting construction of a border wall at Organ Pipe. At the hearing on Wednesday, the court went on to acquit Ortega. According to KJZZ News, at the hearing Ortega's new lawyer argued:
[T]he religious act in question was not prayer at Quitobaquito. It was the act of standing at the construction line and witnessing what she saw as the destruction of her ancestral land.
