Overview
- U.S. Customs and Border Protection has started erecting 30-foot steel wall panels along a roughly 47-mile Big Bend 1 stretch in Hudspeth County while pausing separate work inside Big Bend National Park for further review.
- CBP says the effort is part of a larger “Smart Wall” program that mixes steel panels, vehicle barriers, patrol roads and detection technology and that the agency has recently averaged about 12 miles of barriers built per week.
- Local landowners, conservation groups, ranchers and Native American advocates have organized resistance and filed federal lawsuits challenging DHS’s high-entry findings and the use of IIRIRA emergency waivers to bypass environmental reviews.
- CBP has told the National Park Service it will avoid 30-foot bollard walls inside Big Bend National Park and instead rely on cameras, sensors and limited low-profile barriers while coordinating on mitigation and access.
- The outcome of ongoing court challenges and property-access disputes could halt, alter or delay work in the Big Bend area and affect the timeline for the broader border construction, while some landowners face notices about possible easements or eminent-domain referrals.