The Trump administration has authorized border security infrastructure in Big Bend National Park, one of Texas's most visited protected wilderness areas. The Department of Homeland Security issued waivers that suspend major environmental and historic preservation laws, clearing the way for construction to proceed despite fierce opposition from local leaders, business owners, and public land advocates.
Big Bend National Park spans 800,000 acres of Chihuahuan Desert along the Rio Grande and attracts roughly half a million visitors annually who come to hike, camp, stargaze, and float the river. The park sits within the Big Bend sector, a roughly 500-mile stretch of west Texas that Customs and Border Protection has targeted for border infrastructure. This region includes some of the largest chunks of protected land in Texas, a state that is 95% privately owned.
The DHS waivers empower Customs and Border Protection to build various security infrastructure in the park, from 30-foot steel bollard fencing to unpaved roads. The waivers suspend protections under the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, among others. This marks the first time the agency has used such authority to install border security infrastructure in a national park.
The currently proposed project includes a 17-mile vehicle barrier system in four separate locations, composed of 4-to-6-foot-tall steel rails and posts. The plan also calls for 205 miles of roads up to 24 feet wide equipped with detection technology, utility poles, lighting, and surveillance cameras. However, CBP has sent mixed signals about its intentions, previously suggesting a steel bollard wall before scaling back its public statements.
Bob Krumenaker, former Big Bend National Park superintendent who now leads the advocacy group Keep Big Bend Wild, expressed concern about the landscape impact. "It's massive impact, massive destruction," Krumenaker said, noting that the barriers would dramatically alter some of the most remote parts of an already remote park. He worries that the broad authority granted by the waiver could allow CBP to add virtually any security infrastructure it wants.
The project has drawn bipartisan opposition. U.S. Representative Lloyd Doggett, a Texas Democrat, called the construction unnecessary in a region where illegal border crossings are rare. Crossings in the Big Bend area account for less than half a percentage point of all illegal border crossings nationwide, he noted.
The Big Bend area is home to several endangered species, a struggling bighorn sheep population, and significant concentrations of Native American rock art and petroglyphs. CBP stated that its border security plans for areas near Big Bend National Park remain in the planning stages while the agency focuses on other higher priority locations.