Big Bend Wall Plan Pits Federal Power Against Locals

A court pause and a federal appeal

A court-ordered pause now halts the $46 billion border-wall project in Texas’ Big Bend region, where bipartisan opposition has grown as the Trump administration asks the Supreme Court to lift the order. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott defended the project in an interview with the Associated Press, saying fortifying the country’s borders was “non-negotiable.”

Earlier in October, the judge ordered the pause, finding plaintiffs “will suffer serious, irreparable harm without an injunction.” The order covers work in Big Bend National Park, where even some Republican lawmakers have opposed the project. Bulldozers tore up ground in the park in August. Scott said he ordered a pause on all construction-related activity there while he spoke with people in the region.

Scott said the agency was talking with local residents about how to build projects without marring the park. “We’re talking through and figuring out what is the right solution for that area,” he said. He declined to discuss specific plans because of ongoing lawsuits, but said the project wouldn’t include tall steel walls in the park.

Border infrastructure and enforcement

Republicans in Congress funded the plan last summer. It calls for fortifications along the roughly 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border, including 30-foot-tall steel walls, vehicle barriers, new roads and surveillance technology intended to prevent illegal immigration and smuggling. The administration says construction is advancing at about 12 miles a week.

Scott, a former Border Patrol agent whom Trump tapped to complete the project, leads the agency responsible for carrying it out. He receives daily progress updates and said the project would be complete by the end of Trump’s second term, with the primary border wall targeted for completion by the end of December 2027. Some areas will also get a secondary layer. “We’re actually ahead of schedule,” Scott said.

Scott argued that the Big Bend area would be vulnerable if it lacked a wall or other border infrastructure while other areas received fortifications. “I am 100% convinced it will be completely overrun and destroyed,” he said. He said natural barriers weren’t enough to prevent illegal entry through more navigable points and expressed concern that cartels controlling smuggling from Mexico would exploit any opening.

CBP has 67,000 employees and controls who and what enters the country through official crossings, including airports and seaports, while also working to stop illegal smuggling and migration outside those crossings. Scott described the agency’s goal as knowing what enters and leaves the country and protecting it, calling that objective “non-negotiable.”

Local opposition and agricultural employers

A bipartisan coalition of landowners, local businesses and environmentalists opposes the Big Bend project, calling it a waste of taxpayer money and warning it could damage a region with historically low migrant crossings. Their objections set local concerns against the administration’s plan to extend border infrastructure across the U.S.-Mexico border.

Separately, more than 40 farmers and agricultural industry groups warned President Donald Trump and congressional leaders that the immigration crackdown was affecting the food supply, harming farmers and risking higher grocery prices. Their letter said targeting immigrant workers who haven’t committed crimes and blocking workforce solutions “devastates agricultural producers, drives up food costs for all Americans and makes our nation more dependent on other countries.” Signatories included the Milk Producers Council, Texas International Produce Association, Kansas Livestock Association and Indiana Dairy Producers, along with other members of the American Immigration Business Coalition, a bipartisan employer group that lobbies for immigration changes on Capitol Hill.

About 66% of the country’s farmworkers are foreign-born. Industry leaders said ICE sweeps near major meatpacking plants delayed cattle and livestock operations, shipments and harvesting in southwest Kansas, led to farm-worker arrests in California’s Central Valley and threatened poultry production in Pennsylvania farm country.

Christian Herr, a signatory and president of the PennAg Industries Association, said the group had been at odds with the administration as workers became targets of ICE raids. The letter called on Congress to provide work permits for long-term agriculture workers, citing a bill introduced that year by House Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn “G.T.” Thompson (R-Pennsylvania). It was sent a little more than a week before the November 3 midterm elections.