{"id":911354,"date":"2026-06-08T18:12:19","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T23:12:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/08\/the-looming-disaster-of-the-border-wall-in-big-bend-texas\/"},"modified":"2026-06-08T18:12:19","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T23:12:19","slug":"the-looming-disaster-of-the-border-wall-in-big-bend-texas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/08\/the-looming-disaster-of-the-border-wall-in-big-bend-texas\/","title":{"rendered":"The Looming Disaster of the Border Wall in Big Bend, Texas"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
<\/figure>\n
\n

Last fall, loops of razor-wire fencing were strung along the Rio Grande in the Big Bend area, a remote region of far West Texas. Then, in January, residents heard rumors that a steel barrier was in the works. The wall along the southern border of the United States, whose construction began in the early nineties, under President George H. W. Bush, spans some seven hundred miles. The Big Bend region had previously been a low priority, owing to its rugged terrain and low number of illegal crossings. \u201cThere\u2019s parts of our border [in] which it makes absolutely no sense,\u201d the Texas senator John Cornyn said, when the idea of a Big Bend border wall was floated during the first Trump Administration. In February, a local newspaper, the Big Bend Sentinel<\/em>, reported that construction was imminent. Property owners received letters warning that their land might be taken through eminent domain. Soon, survey crews showed up, bulldozers were spotted along dusty roads, and the Army Corps of Engineers arranged private meetings. The founder of a local R.V. park said that he was offered more than half a million dollars to host workers. He turned it down. \u201cI just couldn\u2019t do it,\u201d he posted on social media.<\/p>\n

The proposed wall in the Big Bend region would cost more than two billion dollars. It would intrude on the land of alfalfa farmers, cattle ranchers, river guides, and wealthy landowners. It would block the views along what National Geographic<\/em> has called one of the most scenic drives in the country, and it would brighten some of the darkest night skies in the continental United States. It would impede the movement of wild animals and prevent livestock from accessing the Rio Grande, a crucial water source. It may disturb historic evidence of \u201cthe edge of the Puebloan world,\u201d according to an archeologist who works in the region. It could disrupt tourism in a regional economy that is reliant on it. In places prone to flooding, a wall could make the problem worse. It would sever people from their neighbors in a region that\u2019s long considered itself binational and interdependent.<\/p>\n

It is unclear what problem a wall would solve. Big Bend is Border Patrol\u2019s largest sector by area along the Southwest border, spanning more than five hundred miles of the Rio Grande, but it has typically had the lowest number of illegal crossings. Since 2023, apprehensions have dropped further, to fewer than two hundred per month this year. The wall is opposed by environmental groups, local sheriffs, and a far-right pro-gun YouTuber who is the region\u2019s Republican nominee for Congress. And yet construction appears to be proceeding apace.<\/p>\n

The construction strikes many locals as both unreasonable and unstoppable. \u201cYou\u2019ve got desert and high mountains and rugged, rough country and no water and no roads,\u201d Bill Ivey, the president of the Brewster County Tourism Council, told me. \u201cThe easiest part of getting to the United States would be scaling the wall. We just don\u2019t see people cross the border out here.\u201d Ivey, a Republican who voted for Donald Trump, has lived in the area for seventy years. A historic house built by his father is in the path of the wall. \u201cIt\u2019s so absurd that I never really believed that it could happen, but it seems like they\u2019re making moves to make it happen, and it just scares the hell out of me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

On a sunny day in mid-April, I drove to Terlingua to meet Billy Miller, who owns property nearby, along the potential path of the wall. Terlingua, a former mining town, sits at the edge of Big Bend National Park, and is a popular tourist destination. Vacation rentals dot the craggy hillsides like mushrooms.<\/p>\n

Miller is a river guide whose air of competence is laced with a rebellious streak. He uses a flip phone and, in a land of pickup trucks, he drives an un-air-conditioned minivan with the radio tuned to a Mexican station broadcasting from the other side of the river. His lips were sunburned after spending three days leading a group down the Rio Grande. \u201cThe river is just hanging on by a thread, anyway\u2014the dams, the unregulated overconsumption, the introduction of invasive species,\u201d he told me. Water levels were low, and rafting companies had been going out of business. He worried that the razor wire would come loose and travel downstream, and that a steel wall would make the river more dangerous for boaters during periodic flash floods\u2014not that there would be anyone left guiding tours, anyway. \u201cWe\u2019re all going to leave,\u201d he said. \u201cWe don\u2019t want to do wall tours.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

I followed Miller\u2019s van to his property in Redford, where a banner hanging on the gate read \u201cGovernor Abbott: PLEASE STOP THE BORDER WALL!!<\/em> Thank you for your attention to this matter!\u201d Miller lives in Terlingua and uses the Redford land as a place to camp, and as a put-in for river trips. He and his wife had been planning to build a cabin and retire on the property.<\/p>\n

Like other landowners I spoke with, Miller said his understanding of where the wall would go largely came from a map on the Department of Homeland Security\u2019s website. A dark green line marked where the government planned to build a \u201cprimary border wall system,\u201d while an orange line indicated \u201cdetection technology\u201d but no physical barrier. Earlier this year, the line was mostly green, meaning that a steel wall would traverse much of Big Bend National Park and Big Bend Ranch State Park. After sustained public outcry\u2014\u201cstop the steel\u201d was one slogan\u2014the colors on the map changed: the line crossing the national park and part of the state park was colored orange. Miller\u2019s land, which abuts the state park, was still in the green zone. But there was pervasive uncertainty about whose land would be affected, and how. \u201cThe only way to get this information is by refreshing the website and seeing what color it is,\u201d a frustrated landowner told me. The map has changed multiple times over the past month, and at one point was removed from the website entirely. In mid-May, the\u00a0head of\u00a0C.B.P.\u00a0said that the administration no longer planned to build a wall within the national park. The current map indicates\u00a0“technology & patrol roads” and \u201cvehicle barrier systems\u201d within the park\u2019s boundaries, and a\u00a0steel wall\u00a0elsewhere in the region, including parts of the state park.<\/p>\n

Miller drove past a thicket of mesquite and parked on a bluff with patchy, sun-bleached grass. The Rio Grande was twenty feet away, shining between stalks of river cane. Though many people come to far West Texas for its isolation\u2014the Unabomber\u2019s slightly less reclusive brother did a stint here in the eighties, living at first in a crude underground shelter\u2014Miller said that immigration-enforcement agents have been an intrusive presence for many years. \u201cIn the Obama days, they deported a lot of our friends out here\u2014people who were raised in Terlingua,\u201d he said. During the second Trump Administration, the federal government sent the military to the area; for a little while, there was a Stryker tank parked across from his property. On multiple occasions, he said, he\u2019d found game cameras that border patrol had hidden in trees, to keep an eye out for illegal activity. (A spokesperson for C.B.P. noted that the agency was entitled to patrol on private lands within twenty-five miles of the border, and said that \u201cwhen installing technology such as cameras on private property, the Border Patrol coordinates directly with the landowner. That was done in this case.\u201d Miller said the agents had not co\u00f6rdinated with him.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

As Miller relayed this story, the sound of a vehicle coming down the dirt road interrupted him. \u201cHere we go,\u201d he said, rolling his eyes. A green-striped Border Patrol vehicle pulled up, and two agents got out, both wearing sunglasses and black tactical vests. \u201cJust seeing if you guys are O.K.,\u201d one said. (The agents declined to give their names.)<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re just talking about how they\u2019re trying to build the border wall\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0. and it\u2019s supposed to basically steal all our property,\u201d Miller said brightly, a glimmer of anger in his voice.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, unfortunately, it\u2019s gonna happen\u2014\u201d the agent started to say.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not going to happen,\u201d Miller said. \u201cNot if we can do anything about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Building the wall in the area was \u201cunfortunate,\u201d the agent conceded, but it would help stop child sex trafficking. \u201cNobody wants that, right?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs it worth billions of dollars to stop a handful of people?\u201d Miller asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it stops one child from getting sex trafficked, yeah, for me, it is,\u201d the agent said stiffly. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to make a difference.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to make a difference,\u201d Miller said bitterly. \u201cLike, the most horrible difference you can imagine.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the agents drove off, Miller walked down to the riverbank and stood looking out at the Rio Grande. It was a muddy green and moving quickly after some recent rain. Miller\u2019s dog, Koozie, waded in the water up to her belly. Lately, the wall had been appearing in his dreams, Miller said. Sometimes he was on the river and the wall blocked him from reaching the shore, and sometimes he was on land and couldn\u2019t find his way to the water. I asked him what he thought was going to happen. \u201cI think they\u2019re going to build the wall,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

That afternoon, I drove upriver, past anti-wall signs that repurposed older political slogans: \u201cCome and Take It\u201d; \u201cDon\u2019t Tread on Me.\u201d By the side of the road, I spotted checkerboard squares\u2014survey points used by drones when conducting aerial mapping. In Ruidosa, a tiny farming community about fifty miles from Redford, I pulled over near a pen of small, frisky goats. The property owner, Jorge Gonz\u00e1lez, came out to say hello; he had a gray-flecked mustache and an easy manner. Gonz\u00e1lez told me that he had spent the past decade working on several hundred acres of arid land and turning it into this improbable desert farm. He gave me a quick tour of his collection of cows, chickens, mules, goats, and sheep. Some shaggy buffalo drowsed in a patch of shade, and a hose fed water into a large puddle where a white goose paddled in tight circles.<\/p>\n

Gonz\u00e1lez had been informed that the wall would pass directly behind his house, effectively cutting his land in two. He picked up a stick and drew lines in the dirt to show me how it had been explained to him: a thirty-foot-tall steel barrier, with a road on either side. Patrol vehicles, bright lights. The initial compensation offered was five thousand dollars. Gonz\u00e1lez didn\u2019t accept, but he worried that the wall might be built across his land, anyway. When he\u2019d told an Army Corps official over the phone that a bisected farm would no longer be able to support his animals, he was told he should pen his cattle instead of letting them roam free. He laughed softly at the idea, which struck him as entirely impractical: in arid West Texas, a single cow typically needs at least twenty acres of rangeland to graze. \u201cIt\u2019s easy for those guys behind those computers to say, but it\u2019s not that easy over here. This is real life,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

While Senator Cornyn seemed unconvinced of the utility of a Big Bend wall during the first Trump Administration, he is in the midst of a tough primary battle with Texas\u2019s hard-right attorney general, Ken Paxton, and has been silent on the matter this time around. The Center for Biological Diversity has sued the Department of Homeland Security, arguing that its efforts to bypass environmental regulations to speed up construction are unconstitutional. (Miller is a party in the lawsuit.) But some people were skeptical that litigation would halt construction. \u201cThe way this government handles things, they plow ahead anyway, even if there\u2019s a lawsuit,\u201d a landowner who stands to lose several hundred acres told me. \u201cThey\u2019ll just worry about it after there\u2019s a wall.\u201d Hundreds of miles downriver from the Big Bend, in the Rio Grande Valley, wall construction has been proceeding at a rapid pace, threatening areas\u2014a historic chapel, a wildlife refuge, a state park, the National Butterfly Center\u2014that had previously been protected by Congress.<\/p>\n

In West Texas, some locals were hopeful that the exigencies of life in a rural area, where recordkeeping can be rudimentary and property boundaries aren\u2019t always clear, might stymie the project, at least for a little while. David Keller, a co-founder of No Big Bend Wall, a community coalition, said that he had recently received a phone call from a man with the Army Corps of Engineers requesting permission to survey his land in Redford. \u201cI had to correct him: \u2018No, sir, I don\u2019t own all that land, there are these little tiny parcels that run all the way to the river, and you\u2019ll have to get permission from everyone.\u2019 People are getting letters with the wrong names, or with the wrong parcels, which is great, because that bodes well for delay.\u201d Small-town social pressure could be a useful tool, too. Recently, a former local official faced swift backlash online after he seemingly entertained the idea of allowing construction crews to use land owned by his company, Keller told me. (The former official denied that planned work on the property was related to the border wall.) \u201cThere is no one here speaking for the wall. If they did, the community would come down and crush them. That\u2019s the way it\u2019s supposed to be. And even though I preach all this high-road stuff, this is too important\u2014I\u2019m telling everyone, do not let your neighbors turn on you. We cannot tolerate turncoats. Rat them out. Shame them,\u201d he said, smiling grimly. \u201cThis is how community works.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\n

\"Large<\/picture><\/span><\/p>\n

A piece commissioned by the owner of a caf\u00e9 in Terlingua, Texas.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

In April, the Jeff Davis County commissioners court, the local governing body, met to consider a wall-related proposal. The county is majority Republican, but the general sentiment was strongly opposed to a border barrier. Outside the courthouse, a pickup truck had a canoe lashed to its roof, \u201cNO WALL<\/em>\u201d painted in red on one flank. Inside, the crowd was impassioned but courteous; even the river guides had tucked in their shirts.<\/p>\n

On the agenda was a seemingly innocuous item: proposed repairs to Chispa Road, an unpaved road that, owing to its proximity to the Rio Grande, would likely be used for wall construction. But first, some improvements would be necessary. In a region of rough roads, Chispa is among the roughest. About fifteen years ago, a couple of truck-enthusiast friends of mine took it upon themselves to drive the length of it, some sixty miles. They set off near dawn, loaded up with snacks and tools, and didn\u2019t finish until near sundown. On the drive home, they were stopped by a Border Patrol agent who \u201cwas kind of flummoxed by the whole operation,\u201d one of them told me.<\/p>\n

In late March, Yolanda Alvarado was driving her Ford F-350 near her family\u2019s cattle ranch when she saw a road crew\u2014an odd sight in such a remote spot. \u201cI played dumb and asked them if they were from the county,\u201d Alvarado told me. \u201cI knew they weren\u2019t from the county, because they had nice, shiny equipment.\u201d The workers told her they were there to improve Chispa Road, to help make way for the wall. They were subcontractors for the Montana-based company Barnard Construction, which had recently been awarded border-barrier contracts totalling more than four billion dollars. \u201cThey said, by the time they were done, it was going to be a highway,\u201d Alvarado said.<\/p>\n

Alvarado\u2019s video of the construction crew went viral. The county, it turned out, had not been consulted on, or approved of, the road work. The company temporarily halted the work and offered to repair the road at no cost to the county, characterizing the work as a gift. At the commissioner\u2019s court meeting, area residents universally condemned the idea, variously calling it a Trojan horse, a foothold, a wasp\u2019s nest, and a bribe. Some framed their opposition to the road improvements, and by extension the wall, in the language of cross-border unity. \u201cIt\u2019s all connected. We are all woven into the same regional cloth,\u201d a former state-park employee said. Others seemed more offended by the idea of the federal government encroaching on local control. \u201cI also can\u2019t help but wonder what Jefferson Davis might think of some of this stuff that\u2019s happening now,\u201d one man said. \u201cAs far as I\u2019m concerned, if they\u2019re going to build this thing against our will, they can do it commuting back and forth on our crappy dirt roads, like everybody else,\u201d a woman said.<\/p>\n

In the end, the commissioners voted to table the decision, citing liability concerns. The day before, neighboring Presidio County had postponed a discussion on whether to allow work on Chispa Road, having asked the company (or D.H.S.) to track down land titles to confirm ownership and property boundaries before proceeding. \u201c\u200aI\u2019m not sure that y\u2019all know what your county road actually consists of,\u201d a Presidio County commissioner told the Jeff Davis County commissioners. \u201cWe sure as hell don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Afterward, Keller stopped to chat with Alvarado at a sandwich shop. \u201cI really think we have a chance,\u201d he said. Without Chispa, they can\u2019t get it started.\u201d The two had never met before the news about the wall, but they had recently discovered a connection: years ago, Keller, an archeologist, had scouted for artifacts and dinosaur bones on Alvarado\u2019s family\u2019s ranch. All morning, Keller had been swinging between optimism and despair. Chatting with Alvarado seemed to bolster his spirits. \u201cPeople come here for a reason. They love it, and they make it work,\u201d he said. \u201cThey may have all the money, they have all the attorneys, but we have a passion for this place.\u201d\u00a0\u2666<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last fall, loops of razor-wire fencing were strung along the Rio Grande in the Big Bend area, a remote region of far West Texas. Then, in January, residents heard rumors that a steel barrier was in the works. The wall along the southern border of the United States, whose construction began in the early nineties, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":911355,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3902,23984],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-911354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-disaster","category-looming"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/911354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=911354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/911354\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/911355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=911354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=911354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=911354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}