In late September, a week before a federal judge halted construction on the Trump administration’s Big Bend area border wall, U.S. Customs and Border Protection quietly paused part of the project voluntarily because of struggles to gain access to private land and a federal contractor’s demand for more money.
That’s according to emails shared with Marfa Public Radio by a Presidio County official who has been in communication with CBP representatives overseeing the project.
According to the emails, CBP on Sept. 24 instructed Barnard Construction — one of the contractors awarded billions of dollars for border barrier projects across the region — to “promptly execute an orderly demobilization” on the part of the wall project being paused. The instruction covered the agency’s “Big Bend 3” wall project spanning 56 miles of the Rio Grande from Hudspeth to Presidio counties. Barnard has a $960.4 million contract for the project.
The directive came just a week before a U.S. District Judge issued an injunction pausing construction across the entire Big Bend region. The Trump administration is now asking the Supreme Court to let construction resume.
CBP did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this story.
In the email exchange, a CBP project manager named Marcus Miniear wrote to Presidio County Commissioner Deirdre Hisler on Oct. 28, sharing a redacted copy of the earlier stop-work directive that Miniear said was sent to Barnard on Sept. 24. Miniear told Hisler he had removed references to specific dollar figures from the original directive, but that “all other components are from the original notification and remain intact.” Hisler shared the exchange with Marfa Public Radio.
In the Sept. 24 directive to Barnard, CBP wrote that the work pause was prompted by Barnard seeking more money for the project due delays caused by a “lack of real estate clearance and road access.”
CBP responded to Barnard’s request by ordering a construction pause and the demobilization of equipment and personnel, according to the emails. The agency made it clear that it did not approve “the lump sum total” or “proposed monthly standby rate” Barnard was requesting. CBP also ordered Barnard to maintain strict “auditable,” accounting for all costs associated with the demobilization.
“Given the staggering magnitude of the proposed monthly standby rate…active demobilization of un-utilizable equipment and personnel is strictly required to mitigate government exposure,” the directive read.
Miniear told Hisler in the exchange that the “suspension of work” remained intact as of this week.
In addition to pausing operations and site prep, CBP also ordered a pause on “logistics associated with Chispa Road access.”
Barnard had been in discussions with officials in Jeff Davis and Presidio counties for months about a road use agreement for Chispa Road — a rugged county road leading to the border. But the agreements continued to face significant pushback from local residents opposed to the border wall.
Jeff Davis County officials declined to vote on a Chispa Road use agreement with Barnard on Sept. 14. Just days later — on Sept. 18 — Barnard sent CBP a “change proposal” requesting additional money from the agency due to delays.
In various court filings in recent months, the Trump administration has alluded to struggles acquiring real estate for the project in an ongoing lawsuit, but it has not disclosed that it has gone as far as issuing its own construction pause due to a lack of access to private land.
Hisler told Marfa Public Radio that CBP is struggling to get enough landowner agreements to proceed with the project across multiple stretches of the Big Bend region.
“ It sounds to me that they're up against a big old brick wall called people saying ‘no’ to them,” she said in an interview.
Hisler said the fact that Barnard is requesting additional money from CBP — after receiving a nearly billion-dollar contract for the Big Bend 3 portion — raises concerns about the project’s viability.
“Is this just truly a boondoggle, as everyone alludes to? Sure feels like it,” she said.
On Thursday, the plaintiffs in the Supreme Court case — the Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Ruidosa Church and a local river guide — submitted their response to the government’s request to resume border wall construction. In the filing, attorneys reference another voluntary pause CBP put on the project in the wake of widespread outcry over construction getting underway in Big Bend National Park. The plaintiffs attorneys argue that pause alone shows the project can stand by while the case gets decided in federal district court.
“That voluntary pause cannot be reconciled with Applicants’ present insistence that emergency relief while the district court makes a final determination on the merits is necessary,” the filing states.
A Supreme Court decision on whether or not to let construction on the Big Bend border wall continue is forthcoming.
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