Texas, As the Trump Administration Pushes Ahead With Plans to Expand the Border Wall Across One of the Country's Most Remote National Parks

Videos shared by conservation groups and local activists show contractors clearing vegetation near the Rio Grande as part of a multibillion-dollar border security project that includes vehicle barriers, surveillance systems, and extensive patrol-road construction across the Big Bend region. The work has drawn bipartisan backlash in Congress, along with opposition from environmental groups, former National Park Service leaders, and local tourism businesses, who warn the project could damage desert ecosystems and alter the character of a park that attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors annually. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) say the infrastructure is necessary to strengthen security in a region spanning hundreds of miles along the southern border, citing more than 89,000 migrant encounters in the Big Bend Sector between fiscal years 2021 and 2025, as well as drug seizures.

"This is the most heinous attack on an American national park in generations, said Laiken Jordahl, national public lands advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity. "The administration is preparing to blast hundreds of miles of destructive roads through the wildest place left in Texas and cut off public access to the Rio Grande, all to enrich private contractors. This is a developing story; more to follow.