Big Bend Residents Mount 150,000-Signature Fight Against $46.5 Billion Border Wall
Updated
Updated · The Guardian · Jul 15
Big Bend Residents Mount 150,000-Signature Fight Against $46.5 Billion Border Wall
3 articles · Updated · The Guardian · Jul 15
Summary
No Big Bend Wall has grown from a February Instagram post into a full-time local campaign using protests, lawsuits and landowner outreach to block a proposed wall in far-west Texas.
Congress last year gave the Department of Homeland Security $46.5 billion for wall expansion, and CBP’s current map still shows a wall through the wider Big Bend region even if the national park itself may get surveillance technology and patrol roads instead.
Barnard Construction won a $960 million contract in March, while activists say some local landowners have begun cooperating by leasing land, selling water or supplying materials, complicating the resistance.
More than 150,000 petition signatures have been delivered to Texas Senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz as residents argue the project would split ranches, restrict river access and damage wildlife and dark-sky tourism.
The fight has drawn conservatives and progressives together, but organizers say sparse federal transparency and cautious Texas GOP responses leave the campaign largely in local hands.