Border wall won't be in Big Bend parks, officials say; advocates vow to keep fighting against wall on private land

On a sunny day in early March, Brewster County Sheriff Ronny Dodson spent an entire day with a CBS News Texas crew. He drove a producer and photojournalist from his home base in Alpine to Presidio, through the winding mountain roads of both Big Bend Ranch State Park and Big Bend National Park, and out to the wide and vast Black Gap Wildlife Management Area. He did it, he said, because he wanted to demonstrate why he is among the voices that has spoken out against a planned border wall in the area. 

Since early February, residents of the Big Bend region have been outspoken about border wall plans, both on social media and through in-person events hosted in Brewster and Presidio counties. A wall wouldn't just be a scar on the landscape, they say. It would also be unnecessary in a region that typically sees far fewer border crossings due to its harsh terrain.

Since news of a proposed border wall in the region spread in February, plans have changed multiple times. The most recent iteration, according to local officials, includes a physical barrier through land to the west of the state park, but not within the state or national parks. Advocates and officials say that while they view it as progress, they will continue to fight against any physical wall in the region.

A bipartisan coalition

Word that a physical border wall was being considered in the Big Bend region quickly spread via word of mouth last month. Landowners in Presidio County began receiving packets from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), letting them know their land might need to be accessed to build a wall. Others were approached by contractors looking to house construction workers for the project. 

The local paper, The Big Bend Sentinel, reported in early February that construction was imminent. Eagle-eyed local residents noticed a map on CBP's website that showed a physical barrier planned for the border region, including through Big Bend Ranch and Big Bend National parks. Others observed a notice posted in the Federal Register waiving 28 federal laws and regulations to allow for the construction of a physical barrier in the Big Bend Sector.

Dodson said he initially got most of his information after he made a traffic stop on a trio of construction workers.

"All of the men told us that they were down here surveying and getting rock samples and saying what they're going to have to do to get the wall going," Dodson said. "It's moving faster than we think it is."

Charlie Angell, a land and business owner who has lived in Presidio County for 11 years, said he is one of the landowners that received a packet from CBP. The notice offered Angell $2,500 to allow CBP contractors to enter his property for construction purposes. 

Angell runs his recreation business on his land along the banks of the Rio Grande in Redford, and lives there himself.

"I've never had anybody, legal or illegal, come up this way to try to threaten me or try to steal from me," he said. "If there was a crisis on the border right here, and I feared for my life, I would welcome a wall to protect me, like anyone would."

Brewster County Judge Greg Henington, a Republican, also opposes a wall in the area, but said in an interview with CBS News Texas he is not anti-border security. 

"The governor and federal administration have helped the sheriff out a great deal with grants and funding to help beef up our law enforcement presence [at the border]," Henington said in early March, before plans for the wall were reduced to omit the state and national parks. "Instead of a physical wall, I think we can use technology or the infrared motion sensors or whatever gadgets they have to do that. They've been doing it now, so it's not new. I don't know why we can't continue to pursue that route in border security versus putting a wall through one of our most spectacular national parks and state park and other wild lands."

Henington also said a physical wall would be a waste of taxpayer dollars.

"There are probably places where a wall makes some sense," he said. "Our terrain is terrible. I mean, you've got to cross mountains, canyons, very, extremely rugged country with no water. I was a paramedic for 20 years in Terlingua, and so I made a number of calls to people that tried to come through here and didn't make it."

Border crossings across the board are down under President Donald Trump. From last October through February of this year, CBP data shows border patrol officers 34,486 migrants illegally crossing the southwestern border, down from 187,898 for that same period the year prior. Only 892, less than three percent, crossed through the Big Bend sector.

"Trump got in and he declared the border was closed," Dodson said. "It basically shut down."

Earlier this month, Sheriff Dodson was joined by the sheriffs of Hudspeth, Culberson, Presidio and Terrell counties, in writing a letter calling on the federal government to reconsider a physical barrier in the Big Bend region. 

"Steep mountain ranges, deep canyons, expansive desert landscapes, and the Rio Grande itself create formidable natural barriers," they wrote.

"We are also mindful of the unique character of the Big Bend region. This area includes nationally and internationally significant public lands, ranchlands, tourism-based economies, and critical wildlife habitat," the letter continued.

In the weeks after the news broke, without direct communication from the federal government, concerned residents watched the CBP map for updates. In early March, the plans were updated to reduce the proposed physical wall to the western portion of the Big Bend sector, only going through part of the state park. As the plan stands today, local officials say there are now no longer plans for a wall in the state park at all.

Even with the updates, advocates said they were not ready to stop fighting. 

"Nothing has really changed. I feel like we have had a consistent state of confusion with lack of communication," said area photographer Anna Claire Beasley. "I really think that until we understand really what is being proposed, and have that in writing, I can't say that this is a win."

Beasley is originally from the San Antonio area, but grew up visiting the Big Bend region and said she always knew she would eventually move there. She has been part of anti-wall organizing efforts in the area, posting real-time updates on social media, advising others on how to get involved and starting an online petition that has surpassed 100,000 signatures.

"This is a nonpartisan issue," Beasley said. "What really matters is that this place stays Texas heritage, that it stays the way it is that future generations can enjoy it the way that we do and that we have."

CBS News Texas reached out to CBP for comment Monday morning, but has not heard back yet. But in early March, CBP released a statement saying: 

"As CBP continues to work to implement President Trump's Executive Order 14165, 'Securing our Borders' and Proclamation 10142, 'Declaring a National Emergency at the Southern Border of the United States,' it continues to develop and finalize its execution plan for border barrier construction funded by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act ... The Big Bend National Park and State Park are still in the planning stages. CBP will continue to coordinate with the National Park Service, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, and other federal and state agencies, throughout the planning of border barrier and technology deployments, in order to achieve Border Patrol's operational priorities."   

Where things currently stand

On Monday afternoon, local elected leaders confirmed to CBS News Texas that over the weekend CBP regional leaders said a 5.6-mile wall through Big Bend Ranch State Park was no longer a part of the plan. Instead, the physical wall is now proposed to start to the west of the state park, with detection technology installed through the state and national parks

During a meeting last week between Presidio County officials and representatives from the Big Bend Sector of CBP, Chief Patrol Agent Lloyd M. Easterling said he and other local CBP partners are sympathetic to concerns, according to a briefing about the meeting authored by Presidio County Commissioner Deidre Hisler and shared with CBS News Texas. 

According to that briefing, construction is expected to begin in June. 

Advocates said that while they consider this latest development progress, they aren't ready to stop fighting against a wall in the region.

"A physical border wall upstream of the parks is still an extremely expensive and damaging option in this area and we plan to look for better options. It's a waste of taxpayer money on a virtually non-existent problem," Clara Bensen, a member of the community coalition No Big Bend Wall, wrote in a text message Monday afternoon.

In an emailed statement to CBS News Texas, Alpine Mayor Catherine Eaves said that along with concern about disrupting tourism and wildlife, she was concerned from a public safety and infrastructure standpoint. 

Her statement read, in part: "Our region has limited capacity in regard to medical resources particularly in the southern areas of the county where only one ambulance serves vast distances. The anticipated influx of up to 600 border wall workers would place additional strain on already limited services. There is only one hospital in the area, located in Alpine, which is up to two hours drive from the river ... We respectfully urge federal authorities to maintain a technology based strategy for the entire Big Bend sector and to refrain from constructing physical barriers in this uniquely sensitive and economically vital region."

Advocates and officials noted that as of Monday night, the online CBP map still showed a physical barrier in Big Bend Ranch State Park.

Lingering concerns

Residents' concerns are wide-ranging, even without a wall through the parks seemingly off the table for now. They range from archaeological to economic, environmental to cultural. 

Raymond William Bartko, owner of Far Flung Outdoor Center in Terlingua, is worried about the impact a wall would have on his recreation business. But he also echoed concerns about the strain on resources an influx of contract construction workers would have on the region. 

"We don't even have a real trash pickup service here," Bartko said. "To come in and house 500 people for 18 months would effectively double our population here in town. To give a real sense of perspective, that would be adding 8.3 million people to the DFW area for 18 months and then ask yourself, what's that do to traffic? What's that do to the resources?"

Archaeologist David Keller said the true impact of what could be lost is impossible to know. He had hoped to excavate an archaeological site known as the Polvo site, which sits on the part of Charlie Angell's property where a wall could be installed.

"Of all the La Junta sites that I know about, this is the only one that is directly in the path of that wall," Keller said. "If they put a physical wall here, it will destroy this site."

To longtime Terlingua resident and historian Cynta de Narvaez, part of the appeal of the region is its cross-border culture. 

"The river does not divide us," de Narvaez said. "We may speak two different languages, but share one thing."

De Narvaez has dedicated much of her life to preserving Terlingua's history. She says when Terlingua was a mining town in the early 1900s, Mexican laborers became an integral part of the town.

"The Mexicans had a place to come across and a place where they were safe, where their kids could go to school and get immunized," de Narvaez said. "They didn't understand discrimination until they left."

There's also a concern that with the parks seemingly protected, private landowners will get left behind.

"I woke up this morning in fear that there would be a loss of momentum," said Christina Hernandez, executive director at the Big Bend Conservation Alliance. "Any thought of the momentum breaking away, people moving away from the movement because they feel that the national park is protected, I think that they lose sight of all the other sacred sites and archaeological sites, but also land that's been in people's family for generation after generation. And we're such a poor community that for a lot of people, that land is their generational wealth."

Hernandez is also a Presidio native whose family has been in the area for more than 1,000 years.

"They want us to feel like we're winning," Hernandez said. "And what gets left behind are the property owners who are up and down the river, who don't have a beautiful national park in our immediate backyard."

The Peñas are among the families that have owned land in Presidio County for generations. When Mario Peña was growing up, it was a bustling farm. He eventually left Presidio County, moving to the less-remote west Texas city of Monahans to raise his family. But when his parents died several years ago, he decided to move back to the Redford area to revive the farm as an alfalfa farm. 

When his son Joaquin got laid off during the COVID-19 pandemic, he invited him to help out. 

"I kind of jokingly was like, alright," Joaquin Peña said. "And then I ended up being here for almost five years now."

When CBS News Texas interviewed the Peñas in early March, they had not been contacted by CBP with an offer to access their land, but their farm sits on the banks of the Rio Grande, in an area where there currently are plans for a wall. Their irrigation system connects to the river. 

"If that wall goes up, we have no access to our pumps that we use to irrigate, which means that our crops will dry out and die," Joaquin Peña said.

Peña said reviving the family farm was a long-time dream of his father's and the thought of losing it now weighs heavy over him: "It just doesn't feel right."

Mario Peña said he doesn't like thinking of that possibility and is choosing to remain positive. But he did say he wouldn't give up his home easily.

"This is our paradise," Mario Peña said. "We're going to fight back for our property."