Two hours from the nearest stoplight, the Rio Grande meanders through rugged canyons under dark skies in the lower 48 states, carving cliffs that drop 1,500 feet below the desert floor of beautifully desolate Big Bend National Park.
Some who call this region home feel a unique bond to the land. In his view, it is a natural barrier that steel cannot supplement. That’s one reason Big Bend has been spared so far from the bulldozer crews that come with new extensions of the border wall.
“We have a barrier made by God,” said Terrell County Sheriff Thaddeus Cleveland, a Republican who oversees a five-deputy division east of Big Bend.
But this year, the Trump administration is pushing ahead with a plan Cleveland never thought it would see.
Locals and elected leaders of both parties across far West Texas are denouncing the Department of Homeland Security’s newly revealed plans to build a border wall through Big Bend National Park and its neighboring state park. He warned that it would cut off access to popular destinations, choke off tourist dollars and disrupt one of the nation’s most pristine regions, but do little to stop illegal immigration.
“It will ruin this county,” said Brewster County Sheriff Ronnie 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 destroy us. We don’t have oil and gas, we have tourism.”
Customs and Border Protection’s public plans include more than 100 miles of planned border wall across Big Bend National Park, cutting off most access to the Rio Grande from the American side.
CBP told NBC News the entire 517-mile stretch of the Big Bend Sector border is ready to receive new infrastructure or upgrades, including areas within national and state parks.
Last week, Homeland Security Secretary Kristy Noem waived 28 environmental protection laws and regulations to expedite the construction of a border wall in the Big Bend region, citing “the dire and immediate need to build 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 the impacts of constructing physical barriers to the extent feasible, while meeting the Border Patrol’s 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 by the end of this year “after land acquisition is completed.”
Dodson told NBC News that the county was recently approached by real estate agents looking for land to build a “man camp” for about 300 workers in southern Brewster County. According to the area’s local newspaper, The Big Bend Sentinel, aggrieved landowners have been approached by a federal contractor about using their property for staging areas and camps.
“It looks like a steamroller is moving,” Brewster County Judge Greg Hennington, a Republican, told NBC News. “Contractors are going around our area, asking questions about man camps and leases … There is no complete transparency.”
Before being elected Hennington County Judge, he was a paramedic in Terlingua and rigged for river trips along the Rio Grande. Those views gave him an appreciation for the region’s delicacies and dangers.
“The terrain is a wall,” he said. “We don’t have a problem monitoring the border. The volume is not very high.”
CBP has encountered 734 people in the Big Bend sector so far in fiscal year 2026, according to the agency’s public data. That’s less than 3% of total encounters across the southern border during that period.
“After Trump closed the border, I’d say 90%. I think we caught one smuggler in the last three months,” Dodson said.
Local leaders are essentially universally in favor of border security and fiscal discipline, but they say a physical wall in their county won’t accomplish that.
“From an economic standpoint, why are we going to spend all this federal money?” Hennington said. “I think there are other ways to do this work than close our eyes and start building walls.”
A county and two hours later, Cleveland, the Terrell County sheriff, said he would welcome more “smart wall” technology that includes technological improvements and surveillance devices rather than a physical barrier.
“I’m a strong supporter of where a wall is needed,” he said. But, “in some of these places, there are things the government can do to save money. I never thought we’d see that.”
Hennington says residents have been unable to get in touch with federal partners for clarity on what to expect as federal contractors prepare to arrive. He says he hopes to speak to them soon.
“At the end of the day, we 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 … This is one of the last frontiers of the lower 48. This is some wild country out here. We don’t see much of it anymore.”
