Border walls and new surveillance technology could be coming to the greater Big Bend region and the rest of Texas’ southern border as part of a sweeping “Smart Wall” plan announced by the Trump administration this month.
In a press release, the Department of Homeland Security described the plan as a system that “combines steel barriers, waterborne barriers, patrol roads, lights, cameras, and advanced detection technology.”
An accompanying map shows multiple segments of the project planned for the greater Big Bend region.
Though many details remain unknown, the map alone suggests that Big Bend National Park would be spared from physical border walls. One project that would run through the entirety of BBNP is described in the map as “detection technology” and entitled “BBT Technology Only.”
A DHS spokesperson did not respond to Marfa Public Radio’s request for clarification, including a question about what the project title means.
Meanwhile, the administration is already waiving a wide range of federal contracting regulations to speed up construction related to border security, according to recent federal regulatory notices.
In one notice published Oct. 15, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem wrote that the department had determined there is an “acute and immediate need to construct physical barriers and roads” in the U.S. Border Patrol’s Big Bend Sector. That sector spans a broad swath of the region, from around Sierra Blanca to Sanderson, and includes the national park. Similar notices with nearly identical language were published the same day for Border Patrol sectors across the southern border.
“This is the first time they’ve signaled any intention or started taking actions that would allow them to build walls in Big Bend, which for the longest time has just been a ridiculous idea,” said Laiken Jordahl, an advocate with the environmental group Center for Biological Diversity.
In a statement, the group said the recent contracting waivers “dismantle the checks and balances that normally govern how public money is spent and how major federal projects are scrutinized.”
“Unlike past waivers which largely bypassed environmental and cultural heritage laws, these waivers are unprecedented both in the comprehensive suite of procurement laws and in geography across the entire southern border,” the advocacy group wrote.
The notice regarding the Big Bend region describes it as an “area of high illegal entry,” despite the fact that, historically, this rugged and remote desert region has seen among the lowest levels of smuggling activity along the U.S. border with Mexico.
Illegal crossings and smuggling activity in the Big Bend – and the rest of the Southwest – have plummeted amid the Trump administration’s border security crackdown. Over the past year, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has reported around 2,900 migrant “encounters” and about 9,100 lbs. of drug seizures in the Big Bend region, compared to almost 32,000 encounters and 29,300 lbs. of drug seizures in 2022.
Still, the department’s regulatory notice said the push to build border barriers and roads in the region is warranted under a January executive order from President Trump. That order directs the Homeland Security and Defense Department secretaries to “take all appropriate action” to “ensure complete operational control” of the border.
It’s not clear where exactly the administration is planning to build walls or roads in the region.
Multiple federal agencies declined to comment on the plan. An Interior Department spokesperson told Marfa Public Radio the National Park Service is “aware” of the recent regulatory notice, but referred questions to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. A CBP spokesperson referred questions to the DHS, which did not respond to multiple inquiries.
Were the Trump administration to actually move forward with the construction of walls and other physical barriers in the Big Bend area, it would mark a notable shift in border politics.
For years, politicians across the political spectrum have largely agreed that wall building would be unnecessary or inappropriate in the Big Bend area, a popular Texas tourism region where much of the Rio Grande travels through steep canyons already lined on either side by steep rock walls.
In 2016, shortly after President Trump was first elected, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott acknowledged there are parts of the southern border where a wall would be “extremely challenging to build” and said specifically that he didn’t want to see a wall built in Big Bend National Park, according to the Associated Press. In 2017, a local Border Patrol union leader told NPR he was more interested in seeing additional manpower than physical barriers.
A spokesperson for Abbott did not respond to a request for comment.
Few people are more intimately familiar with the Rio Grande’s stretches through the Big Bend than Greg Henington, a longtime local river guide and the top elected official in Brewster County, which is home to the national park.
In an interview, Henington said he had not yet heard about this month’s regulatory notice and described it as something “out of the blue.”
Henington said it would not make sense to build a wall in the area given its rugged terrain, adding that he thinks other areas would be “much higher priority than us.”
“Who wants to come through Big Bend? No water, mountain ranges, why would you do that when you can walk right into Arizona,” he said. “I'm remaining cautiously optimistic that our tourism economy will continue to be strong — the place that people will come to and not find a wall.”
Mary Cantrell contributed reporting.
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