DHS Plans to Build a Border Wall Through Big Bend National Park, Eliminating Visitor Access to the Rio Grande
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem waived 28 environmental and conservation laws to fast-track this project
By the end of this very year, this beautiful view of the Rio Grande Wild and Scenic River could have a steel bollard border wall right in the middle of it.
Last month, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem green-lit the construction of a border wall through Big Bend National Park in southwest Texas, an order that went into effect on February 17, 2026.
Citing “an acute and immediate need to construct physical barriers and roads”—despite a 74% decline in apprehensions for illegal border crossings in the Big Bend Sector last year, which the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) bragged about as recently as December 5, 2025—Secretary Noem waived no fewer than 28 federal laws.
That list of environmental, conservation, and preservation laws waived to destroy the integrity of one of America’s wildest national parks is shocking.
In fact, it’s so outrageous I’m going to mention them all below, just so you can see the blatant disregard for nature, wildlife, and the environment for yourself:
National Environmental Policy Act
Endangered Species Act
Federal Water Pollution Control Act (also known as the Clean Water Act)
National Historic Preservation Act
Migratory Bird Treaty Act
Migratory Bird Conservation Act
Clean Air Act
Archeological Resources Protection Act
Paleontological Resources Protect Act
Federal Cave Resources Protection Act
National Trails System Act
Safe Drinking Water Act
Noise Control Act
Solid Waste Disposal Act
Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act
Archeological and Historic Preservation Act
Antiquities Act
Historic Sites, Buildings, and Antiquities Act
Eagle Protection Act
Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act
Administrative Procedure Act
Energy Independence and Security Act (Section 438)
National Fish and Wildlife Act
Fish and Wildlife Coordination Act
Farmland Protection Policy Act
Wild Horse and Burro Act
Wild and Scenic Rivers Act
Federal Lands Policy and Management Act
All of those laws no longer apply to the Rio Grande corridor through Big Bend National Park.
And it’s all done to build a physical wall through what’s effectively already a near-impassable area, thanks to the river, sheer canyon walls, barren mountains, and vast waterless Chihuahuan desertscapes.
The 517-mile Big Bend Sector makes up about one quarter of the entire U.S.-Mexico border, yet it is responsible for only approximately 1.7% of all recent apprehensions along that border.
To illustrate this: so far in Fiscal Year 2026, from October through January, there have been a grand total of 734 so-called “southwest land border encounters” in the entire Big Bend Sector, according to CBP’s own data. (Big Bend National Park has 118 miles of those 517 miles in the sector, but is by far the most remote, rugged, and inaccessible area, so it has disproportionately fewer border crossing attempts than elsewhere.)
In the same period, along the entire southern border, the total was 42,378.
Illegal border crossings are not a problem here at all.
And the locals agree.
“For years, I have said that a physical wall is a 20th-century solution to a 21st-century challenge. It is one of the most expensive and least effective ways to secure the border, and it does not reflect the priorities of our border communities,” said Democratic Texas State Senator Cesar Blanco on Instagram in late March. “We can achieve real border security through smart technology, well-trained personnel, and strong coordination, without wasting taxpayer dollars or bypassing the environmental safeguards that help preserve the landscapes that define our region.”
“It’ll ruin this county. If it’s a real wall, it will devastate us. We don’t have oil and gas, we have tourism,” Ronny Dodson, Brewster County Sheriff and a Democrat in an overwhelmingly Republican county, told NBC News. “Since Trump closed the border, we’re down I would say 90%. I think we’ve caught one smuggler in the last three months.”
And it’s not just Democrats that oppose this—at all.
“This county judge sees no reason to go with a border wall in Brewster County,” said Greg Henington, Brewster County Judge, a Republican, and river outfitter, at the “Water in the Desert 2026” conference on February 12. “I get border security, but there are other ways to do it.”
Republican Hudspeth County Judge Joanna Mackenzie agreed, stating that the border wall plan is a “band-aid to make people feel better who don’t live here.”
“We’ve got a God-made barrier,” said Terrell County Sheriff Thaddeus Cleveland, a Republican, NBC News reported. “I’m a strong supporter of a wall where it’s needed, but in some of these places, there are things the government could do that would save money. It’s something I never thought we would see.”
Local business owners, too, have voiced concerns about the project.
“It’s a real deal,” James King, a ranch real estate agent with King Land and Water, told Marfa Public Radio. “We’ve always thought it was kind of like a concept that might happen, that ‘Surely they would never do that. It’s ridiculous. Why would they?’ And suddenly, bam, here they are.”
And, indeed, a steel bollard border wall through Big Bend National Park would be an economic and environmental disaster.
A physical wall that stops humans would also cut off travel routes of black bears, mountain lions, jaguars, deer, and javelinas. It would eliminate visitor access to the Rio Grande. It would impact scenic views. It would destroy the park’s wilderness character.
A riverside wall and its associated patrol roads would severely impact bird habitat in the park, too. Big Bend National Park is home to 409 bird species, the second-highest bird diversity of all 63 national parks—as I analyzed in this “biodiversity of America’s national parks” deep dive last year.
In terms of total biodiversity—total number of species of fauna and flora—Big Bend ranks 6th, well above, for example, Everglades and Yellowstone.
Because a border wall comes with lighting infrastructure, it would also annihilate astro-tourism, one of the region’s biggest money-makers. It would introduce massive amounts of other pollution and waste, too. And it would put river guides, outfitters, B&B owners, shopkeepers, etc. out of business, local Texans who rely almost entirely on park visitation.
In 2024, according to the National Park Service’s (NPS) National Park Visitor Spending Effects report, Big Bend National Park was visited by 561,000 people, who spent $56.8 million in local gateway communities. Park visitation supported 585 local jobs and provided a total of $17.3 million in labor income.
These numbers are massive for an area this remote, where the nearest somewhat sizable town—Alpine—is home to just over 6,000 residents.
“People come to Big Bend National Park to enjoy the Chihuahuan desert, Chisos Mountains, and Rio Grande and end up supporting the US and local economies along the way,” Superintendent Rick Gupman said after the NPS report came out last September. “We’re proud that Big Bend National Park generates many millions of dollars in revenue to communities near the park.”
Now, however, that Rio Grande access praised by Superintendent Gupman as an economy-boosting factor is in grave danger.
Bob Krumenaker, former Big Bend National Park Superintendent and current chair of Keep Big Bend Wild said on the National Parks Traveler podcast that “there’s reason to believe, based on the limited information we have, that the intent would be to build a solid barrier wall with an adjacent road that would connect the canyon walls wherever there aren’t high canyons,”
So, essentially, as shown by CBP’s “Smart Wall Map,” every section of the Rio Grande in Big Bend National Park that runs between canyons would be paralleled by a wall—plus a brand-new road alongside it. The canyons themselves would be watched with detection technology.
The green “Planned” sections on the map below would get “a combination of primary and secondary steel bollard wall, waterborne barriers, patrol roads, and the technology required to tie it all together, such as cameras, lights, and other detection technology,” as per the CBP website.
The orange “Detection Technology” sections represent the park’s canyons, which cannot be crossed thanks to their sheer walls.
“What that would mean is no river access to the public,” Krumenaker said. “Two of the three main roads at the national park […] dead-end at the river. River running, canoeing, and to some extent fishing are really popular in the park. There’s a wonderful hot spring along the river and, worst case scenario, none of these places are accessible.”
“You’re looking probably at lighting. This is the darkest night sky in the United States, and it’s part of the first International Dark Sky Reserve, along with lands in Mexico. And if you’re looking at stadium lighting along a border wall, you can pretty much kiss that goodbye,” he warned.
Border wall construction in the national park could start as soon as May, the former superintendent of Big Bend National Park said.
Once it does, this pristine national park—again, one of the wildest, most rugged, most remote, and most biodiverse in the lower 48 states—would turn into an active construction site.
It will come with “staging areas, crew quarters, roads, […] sensors, secondary walls, no-man’s lands, river diversions,” outdoor journalist Wes Siler explained on the Outdoor Minimalist podcast on February 27.
“So you’re gonna have thousands of workers, you’re gonna have all the heavy equipment in Texas, you’re gonna have explosions that blast rock, you’re gonna have farming loaders beeping as they back up, you’re gonna have giant dump trucks driving the roads in the park. The footprint of this, just during construction, is going to be massive,” Siler said.
Places that would get destroyed, damaged, and/or become (at least partially) inaccessible to park visitors include:
Santa Elena Canyon Overlook
Santa Elena River Access
Cottonwood Campgroundd
Hot Springs Historic District
Daniels Ranch
Rio Grande Village
Boquillas Canyon Overlook
To learn more about this, I recommend listening to the podcast episodes I mentioned above:
How You Can Help
Unlike other pressing issues—like the Boundary Waters, the nomination of Steve Pearce, and Mike Lee’s latest public lands attack—this is not an issue where calling or emailing your Senators and Representative is going to make much of a difference (unless you live in Texas—see below).
This is not an issue that the U.S. Congress will do anything about right now. This is not about any pending congressional bill or nomination for a top-level position at some agency.
This is the executive branch—the Trump administration—executing its immigration agenda, supported by funding provided by the Republicans’ so-called Big Beautiful Bill, which appropriated a record $46.5 billion for border wall construction last summer. (For comparison: the total annual budget of the entire National Park Service and its 433 individual sites appropriated by Congress is 2.9 billion.)
The only way to start to really put an end to all of this BS is voting out anti-public lands and anti-conservation Republicans in November.
In the meantime, however, what you can do is supporting the organizations that are fighting this:
Another meaningful way to push back against the Big Bend border wall is adding your signature to this rapidly growing petition.
As I said above, if you actually do live in Texas yourself, contacting your Senators and Representative could make a difference. That includes both national and state politicians, even Governor Greg Abbott himself:
Lastly, help spread the word. Share this article. Tell your friends, family, and neighbors about it. Awareness is powerful and may influence people’s voting behavior in the future.
Thanks for helping to protect our public lands and waters!
See you out there,
Bram
Image 1: NPS / Cookie Ballou
Image 2: NPS
Image 3: U.S. Customs and Border Patrol
I feel like every week is a new attack. It's so tiring, and I hate that that is the point of all this overload. It's so sad - little do they know or even care that the start of these conservation efforts ARE deeply rooted in our identify as Americans. I certainly took a more cultural heritage perspective and felt even some national pride when I started getting into it.
Thank you for suggesting where to donate to support the fight against this unlawful action. Calling our reps won't help since no approval was requested! Noem must be stopped, and that is something we can contact Congress about.