The case comes as the Trump administration pushes ahead with a $46 billion effort to secure the roughly 2,000-mile US-Mexico border. The plan includes 30-foot steel bollard walls, vehicle barriers and surveillance technology intended to prevent migrants and smugglers from crossing into the country. The Associated Press and ABC News reported that the lawsuit was filed by Conserve Big Bend, a nonprofit focused on protecting the region’s landscape and heritage, along with six landowners, with dozens of others living along the border supporting the legal challenge.
Texas landowners, ranchers and business owners are taking legal action to stop the Trump administration from building border walls and related infrastructure through the remote Big Bend region, arguing that the area does not face the high levels of illegal crossings used to justify the construction.
David Keller, an archaeologist and historian who specialises in the Big Bend and lives in the region, said at a press conference in Marfa announcing the lawsuit, as reported by the Associated Press, that residents were determined to protect the place they call home.
“For us, the Big Bend is not an empty place on the map,” Keller said. “It is our home.”
The Big Bend region stretches for roughly 500 miles along the US-Mexico border, representing about a quarter of the entire southern border. Yet historical Customs and Border Protection statistics cited in the lawsuit show that the region has accounted for only about 1% of border arrests.
The government has said in court proceedings that no final construction plan has been settled for the park. A central argument in the lawsuit is that the federal government is wrongly describing Big Bend as an area experiencing high levels of illegal border crossings. The plaintiffs argue that those figures undermine the administration’s justification for using special powers to accelerate construction. The Department of Homeland Security has relied on congressional authority that allows the secretary to waive certain environmental, archaeological and wildlife protections when officials determine that urgent border security needs require it. The legal challenge also comes as arrests along the border have fallen sharply since President Donald Trump returned to office. Laura Allen, whose family ranch could be divided by the proposed border wall, is a former county judge and a two-time Trump voter. Speaking at the press conference, she acknowledged the administration’s border-security efforts while urging officials to reconsider construction in the region. Proposals made public so far have included a new road, detection technology and barriers designed to prevent vehicles from crossing the border.