As Big Bend wall outcry builds, Paxton does not say whether construction should proceed
By Gabby Birenbaum, The Texas Tribune
August 12, 2026
WASHINGTON — Bipartisan furor has erupted over the arrival of federally contracted construction crews in Big Bend National Park last week as the Trump administration’s pursuit of a border barrier in the park is making its way onto the midterm campaign trail.
On Tuesday, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas became the highest-ranking Republican official to speak out, asking Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin to consult with local officials before proceeding with construction. The move drew praise from Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico, who issued a statement applauding Cornyn’s call for local input and blasting the Big Bend wall as a “monument to corruption” that “no Texan asked for.”
As Republicans from Cornyn to U.S. House candidate Brandon Herrera to local county judges and sheriffs push back on the wall plans, Attorney General Ken Paxton — the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Texas and a close ally of President Donald Trump — has remained tight-lipped.
Asked whether Paxton supports construction of barriers and patrol roads in Big Bend, a spokesperson for the attorney general’s campaign did not say where he stands on the matter, responding with a statement that said Paxton wants to balance competing priorities. The statement also did not address whether Paxton agrees with Cornyn’s call for the feds to halt construction until they meet with local leaders.
“As Attorney General Paxton has stated previously, he is focused on listening to voters to explore all effective and smart solutions to the serious challenges facing communities along the Texas border,” Paxton spokesperson Madison Cercy said in a statement to The Texas Tribune. “He is committed to strong border security that protects Texans while considering the unique characteristics of different stretches of the border, including areas like Big Bend.”
Cornyn is set to leave office at the end of his term, having lost his primary to Paxton in a runoff earlier this year. In his letter to Mullin, which Cornyn sent Friday and publicly released Tuesday, the senior senator noted that border county leaders in April had asked the Department of Homeland Security to consult with them before implementing the agency’s border security plans, including new wall construction. DHS did not appear to have responded, Cornyn said.
“The requests from local officials and community leaders for coordination and communication appear very reasonable to me,” Cornyn wrote, adding that his constituents “believe that the 1,000-foot riverbank cliffs and remote Big Bend terrain offers its own source of deterrence for any illegal migrants crossing into the United States.”
Talarico, who has vigorously opposed construction plans in Big Bend National Park or Big Bend Ranch State Park, praised Cornyn for penning the letter.
“He and I agree: we need to secure our border by listening to local sheriffs and Border Patrol,” Talarico said in a statement Tuesday. Echoing Cornyn’s letter, the Austin lawmaker added, “We don’t need to wreck one of our nation’s greatest treasures by building an expensive wall on an already existing natural barrier.”
In Trump’s second term, DHS has moved forward with plans to build 30-foot wall segments and other infrastructure in the environmentally sensitive and much beloved Big Bend region. The harsh environment in West Texas includes what opponents of the plan describe as “God’s walls” — massive limestone canyon cliffs that make migrant crossings rare.
The Big Bend Sector is the quietest of U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s nine sectors along the country’s boundary with Mexico. It accounted for about 1.3% of apprehensions in fiscal year 2025 despite covering nearly one-quarter of the southwest border.
As the wall project has proceeded, Democrats have seized on the issue. At the federal level, U.S. House Democrats from Texas urged DHS to change tack in letters and attempted to thwart construction via legislation. Reps. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, and Veronica Escobar, D-El Paso, proposed an amendment to the homeland security appropriations bill in June — which funds the department and the border agencies it oversees — to prevent barrier construction in the national or state park. The measure was killed on a party-line vote.
At an April rally at the U.S. Capitol with park advocates, members of Texas’ congressional delegation emphasized the bipartisan nature of the opposition.
“I hope our Republican colleagues will join us, because this is not a partisan issue,” Rep. Lizzie Fletcher, D-Houston, said. “You can file this under nobody asked for this, and nobody wants it.”
And on the campaign trail, they’ve called out Republicans’ reluctance to break from Trump by speaking out. Escobar said Paxton could, as attorney general, sue the federal government to stop construction.
Talarico has attempted to tie the project to his broader anti-corruption campaign theme, alleging that it will be built via “sweetheart, no-bid contracts.” He has also packaged his opposition to the wall as part of a broader suite of border security proposals aimed at appealing to Republicans and independents, such as hiring more Border Patrol agents and using surveillance technology to detect illegal crossings.
“Three weeks ago, I stood in Sanderson, Texas alongside Republican, Democratic, and independent sheriffs, mayors, and small business owners,” Talarico said in a statement after bulldozers arrived in the park last week, referring to his campaign stop where he rolled out his border plan. “Every single one of them told me the same thing: this is irresponsible spending that no Texan asked for, enriching wealthy contractors without making Texans one bit safer.”
Republicans, meanwhile, have criticized Talarico’s record on the border. Paxton has referred to the Democrat’s support for border security as the “fake Talarico,” and emphasized his votes in the Texas Legislature against a sweeping border funding bill to create a state border policing unit and a bill requiring local sheriffs to collaborate with ICE.
“He fought against every single bill that would have protected our state at the border — every single one,” Paxton said at a recent rally in Allen.
The Big Bend region is located in Texas’ 23rd Congressional District, which has sat vacant since former Rep. Tony Gonzales, a moderate Republican, resigned earlier this year. Both candidates to replace him — Herrera, the Republican nominee, and Democrat Katy Padilla Stout — have publicly opposed the wall proposal for months and rallied against it earlier this year at the Texas Capitol.
“I have made it very clear that I oppose any construction in the Big Bend area that disturbs the natural landscape and threatens the jobs that tourism brings where non-intrusive technology would do the job,” Herrera said in a statement Wednesday.
Herrera, noting that he has brought his concerns directly to Mullin, said the department “has communicated in the past that it shares this goal,” and that he plans to hold them accountable. And he took his stance a step further, pledging to oppose funding measures that lack language protecting the national park.
“Once elected, I will deliver the strongest possible oversight of this area and will oppose any border-related spending bills that do not guarantee that there will be no disruptive and unnecessary construction in and around Big Bend National Park,” Herrera said.
In her own statement to the Tribune, Padilla Stout criticized Herrera’s endorsement from Trump and echoed Talarico’s messaging that frames the Big Bend wall effort as a hotbed of corruption.
“This is not about protecting our border, this is about greed,” Padilla Stout said. “And the ones who will pay the prices [are] our children. If you want someone that will stand with the Texans who support protecting Big Bend, who is not aligned with the administration funding the destruction of our beloved park — I am that candidate.”
In February, under then-Secretary Kristi Noem, DHS waived dozens of environmental laws in order to expedite the construction of barriers and roads along a stretch of the border in the Big Bend region. In May, with Mullin now in charge, the department again waived policies to accelerate construction in an area that includes the national park.
The Trump administration awarded a $1.7 billion contract in May to construct “border wall in Big Bend Texas”, and the agency’s current publicly available smart wall map states that the contract is for the construction of vehicle barriers, technology and a patrol road, rather than a 30-foot wall. Heavy machinery was spotted in the park last week to begin clearing land.
That contract is for one of five border barrier projects in the Big Bend region. Others include a $2.6 billion deal for vehicle barriers and patrol roads on a nearly 166-mile stretch of the border east of the park, in Alpine and Sanderson, and a $1.2 billion border wall contract for vertical barrier construction along the border west of the park, from Presidio County to Big Bend Ranch State Park.
Park advocates have slammed the project as both unnecessary for border protection and irreparably damaging.
Earlier in August, a contingent of 140 local businesses and recreation organizations wrote to Cornyn, Sen. Ted Cruz and Gov. Greg Abbott asking them to speak out, saying the government’s current plan would “end commercial and recreational river use in Big Bend National Park and along Rio Grande Wild and Scenic River, crippling local businesses and the regional tourism economy for no demonstrable security benefit.”
In March, a bipartisan group of sheriffs in the Big Bend region released a statement arguing that a continuous physical wall would be neither practical nor provide the same strategic benefit as wall segments in “high-traffic urban sectors.” One of the signatories, Republican Terrell County Sheriff Thaddeus Cleveland, called DHS’ planned vehicle barriers east of the park “a boondoggle.”
Local residents have raised concerns about the environmental impact of construction and the addition of lighting systems and access roads — a concern Cornyn reflected in his letter. The Big Bend region contains some of the darkest skies in North America and unique biodiversity that environmental advocates say would be harmed by wall segments.
In May, a group of seven former superintendents of the national park wrote a letter to Mullin warning that the installation of vehicle barriers would forever alter the landscape, increase the risk of flash flooding and prove destructive to plants and animals of the desert.
“If a border wall—or other unnecessary and highly destructive border infrastructure—is built inside Big Bend National Park, it would be the most egregious assault on the integrity of the entire National Park System since the construction of a dam in the Hetchy Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park more than a century ago,” the former superintendents wrote.
This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune.