Statement from No Big Bend Wall on Border Wall Construction Starting in Big Bend Region
BIG BEND REGION — U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has started installing wall panels in Hudspeth County in West Texas. CBP says work is underway on Big Bend 1, a 47-mile segment of a planned 30-foot steel wall that would run from south of Sierra Blanca to Big Bend Ranch State Park. It is the first major wall construction in the Big Bend region.
“The threat of a border wall in our region is now a reality,” said Clara Bensen, Board Member with Conserve Big Bend and Director of Communications for the No Big Bend Wall initiative. “This is heartbreaking, especially for the families who have worked this land for generations. CBP’s own numbers show the Big Bend Sector has had the fewest apprehensions of any southwest border sector every year for 53 years. Nothing in that record justifies a wall. That is why landowners went to federal court on Monday, and why none of us are going anywhere. Hundreds of us are standing together, and a few steel panels going up doesn’t change that.”
About 65% of the land in the project footprint is private property, and many owners have received letters from CBP saying their land could be referred to the Department of Justice for eminent domain if they do not sign access agreements.
This construction comes days after Conserve Big Bend and six landowners sued DHS and CBP in federal court in Washington, D.C. The lawsuit argues that Big Bend does not meet the “high illegal entry” standard DHS must satisfy to waive dozens of federal laws and fast-track a wall. According to the complaint, the Big Bend Sector has recorded the fewest apprehensions of any southwest border sector every year for 53 years, and apprehensions there dropped 74 percent between fiscal years 2023 and 2025. Those are CBP’s own numbers. The suit asks the court to block construction across the region.
Work inside Big Bend National Park remains paused, and the government has agreed to extend that pause through Sept. 30. The pause does not cover the rest of the region, as this week’s construction shows.