Texas’ Big Bend braces for border wall in national park, worrying local Republicans and Democrats

Two hours from the nearest stoplight, the Rio Grande flows through rugged canyons beneath the darkest skies of the Lower 48 states, carving cliffs that drop 1,500 feet below the desert floor of beautifully desolate Big Bend National Park.

The few people who live in the region feel a unique connection to the land. In their eyes, it’s the kind of natural barrier that steel can’t complete. That’s one reason Big Bend has so far been spared the bulldozer crews coming with new sections of border wall.

“We have a barrier created by God,” said Terrell County Sheriff Thaddeus Cleveland, a Republican who oversees a five-deputy department just east of Big Bend.

But this year, the Trump administration is moving forward with a plan Cleveland never thought he’d see.

Residents and elected leaders from both parties in far West Texas are condemning the Department of Homeland Security’s recently revealed plans to build a border wall through Big Bend National Park and its neighboring state park. They warn it will cut off access to popular destinations, choke off tourist revenue and disrupt one of the country’s most pristine regions, while doing little to stop illegal immigration.

“This is going to ruin this county,” said Brewster County Sheriff Ronny Dodson, a Democrat who has held office in his solidly red county for more than two decades. “If it’s a real wall, it will devastate us. We don’t have oil or gas, we have tourism.”

Public plans from Customs and Border Protection call for building a more than 100-mile border wall throughout Big Bend National Park, cutting off access to much of the Rio Grande on the U.S. side.

CBP told NBC News that the entire 517-mile stretch of the Big Bend Sector border is expected to receive new infrastructure or improvements, including areas within national and state parks.

Last week, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem waived 28 environmental protection laws and regulations to expedite construction of the border wall in the Big Bend region, citing “an acute and immediate need to construct additional physical barriers and roads near the United States border to prevent illegal entry.”

“CBP has and will continue to coordinate with stakeholders and other federal agencies during the planning and construction process to minimize impacts where physical barriers will be constructed to the greatest extent possible, while still meeting Border Patrol operational requirements,” a CBP spokesperson said in a statement.

Contracts for these projects are expected to be awarded “in the coming weeks and months,” according to the agency, and construction is expected to begin toward the end of this year “once land acquisition is complete.”

Dodson told NBC News that real estate agents recently contacted the county looking for land to build a “man camp” for some 300 workers in South Brewster County. According to the area’s local newspaper, The Big Bend Sentinel, furious landowners have been contacted by federal contractors about their property being used as staging areas and camps.

“The steamroller seems to be moving,” Republican Brewster County Judge Greg Henington told NBC News. “Contractors are flooding our area, asking questions about man camps and leases… there hasn’t been a lot of transparency.” »

Before Henington was elected county judge, he was a paramedic in Terlingua and a river tour outfitter along the Rio Grande. These perspectives allowed him to appreciate the fragility – and dangers – of this region.

“The land itself is a wall,” he said. “We have no problem with border surveillance. The volume is not very high.”

CBP has encountered 734 people in the Big Bend sector in fiscal year 2026 to date, according to the agency’s public data. This represents less than 3% of the total encounters crossing the southern border during this period.

“Since Trump closed the border, we’ve lost, I would say, 90 percent. I think we’ve caught one smuggler in the last three months,” Dodson said.

Local leaders are largely unanimous in favor of border security and fiscal discipline, but they say a physical wall in their county would achieve neither.

“From an economic standpoint, why are we going to spend all this federal money? Henington said. “I think there are other ways to get this job done than just turning a blind eye and starting to build walls.”

One county and two hours later, Cleveland, the Terrell County sheriff, said he would welcome more “smart wall” technology, including technological enhancements and surveillance tools, rather than a physical barrier.

“I am a strong supporter of the wall where it is needed,” he said. But, he added, “in some of these places, there are things the government could do to save money. It’s something I never thought I’d see.”

Henington says he hasn’t been able to contact federal partners for specifics on what residents should expect as federal contractors prepare to arrive. He says he just hopes to talk to them soon.

“At the end of the day, we just want to have a conversation,” he said. “Our goal is to see if we can protect a very beautiful resource and not hurt our economy…It’s one of the last frontiers in the Lower 48. It’s wild country down there. We don’t see much of that anymore.”