Border wall closes in on Texas' biggest state park
REDFORD, Texas—Plans for a border wall through the Big Bend region of West Texas are raising alarms among residents and elected officials.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) intends to build border barriers throughout this remote region of Texas that encompasses ranchland, small towns and a cherished state and national park.
Last week, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) waived 28 laws for environmental protection and historical and archeological preservation to expedite construction in a more than 150-mile stretch from Fort Quitman in Hudspeth County to Colorado Canyon in Big Bend Ranch State Park. An online map posted by CBP indicates that “smart wall” construction is planned both within the state park and in neighboring Big Bend National Park.
Historically, the number of people crossing unauthorized into the United States in the Big Bend region is much lower than in more urban, populous areas. But since the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, passed in July 2025, appropriated $46.5 billion for border wall construction, no region appears to be spared.
While unauthorized border crossings have dropped dramatically in the past two years, the Trump administration is moving forward with the border wall, including in Arizona’s San Rafael Valley and wildlife refuges in South Texas.
According to the CBP website, construction for the smart wall can include a steel bollard wall or waterborne barrier, “along with roads, detection technology, cameras and lighting and in some cases a secondary wall.”
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/2/21/2369304/-Border-wall-closes-in-on-Texas-biggest-state-park?pm_campaign=blog&pm_medium=rss&pm_source=main
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I’ve been out there and that is some of the toughest, remote country in the Lower 48. Most of the area is thinly populated—VERY thinly populated. Roads are scarce out there, very scarce, and most of the territory would be extremely unkind to off-road vehicles. Nobody’s going to be running tractor-trailer convoys of undocumented folks without getting noticed.
Even if border crossing is possible, and I agree that it is, so what? You are still out in the middle of nowhere tens of miles or more from the nearest city or town and as likely as not from the nearest major roadway to take you some where even half-way important.
If there are any right-wingers monitoring my posts, I suggest that you look at a map. A REAL map. Look up Big Bend on Google or some other server and look at the maps showing the terrain.
Take a good look. Take a REALLY GOOD look. This is the sort of terrain frontiersmen avoided in Wild West days: too remote, too hot, too dry, and too rugged.
