The Trump administration has started building the border wall through a west Texas section of the Big Bend region, marking the first major construction in an area where the plan has faced heavy opposition.
Customs and Border Protection said in a statement to The Associated Press that 'border wall panel installation is underway' in a 47-mile stretch of Hudspeth County in west Texas known as Big Bend 1. CBP said the first panels were erected on September 15. On its website, the agency posted a photo showing a crane lifting one of the 30-foot-tall steel wall panels into place while construction workers looked on.
The start of construction marks a milestone in the administration's $46 billion plan to line the border with walls, barriers, roads and technology. The effort is tied to a campaign promise by President Donald Trump to finish the wall. CBP also said it has doubled the pace at which it is building the wall across the U.S.-Mexico border.
The agency said it is building an average of 12 miles of barriers per week along the 2,000-mile border with Mexico. It recently reached 200 miles of new barriers built since the second Trump administration took office. The 12-miles-a-week average is double the pace that the agency's head, Rodney Scott, cited earlier this year.
The Big Bend region has drawn concerted opposition from landowners, environmental groups, business owners and ranchers who say the remote area is not a high-traffic corridor for illegal immigration. Earlier this week, landowners, ranchers and business owners in the region, along with a nonprofit dedicated to protecting the area's landscape and heritage, sued to stop the administration's plans.
The new activity is separate from a border infrastructure project in nearby Big Bend National Park, where the administration has temporarily suspended construction in an effort to reach out to opponents.
Clara Benson, one of the founders of the No Big Bend Wall Coalition, said the group had been receiving reports of trucks moving supplies into the remote area along the Rio Grande and that contractors had been clearing yards to stage supplies. She said the coalition would keep fighting the wall-building plans across the region.
'We will continue to fight for this land no matter what the outcome is. We will continue fighting to the end,' Benson said. 'You talk to people in west Texas and they say even if they put it up, we'll fight for them to take it down. So this fight is not over.'
The administration is speeding forward with a plan to line the border with 30-foot-tall steel bollard walls, barriers designed to stop vehicles from crossing, new patrol roads and technologies to deter and detect migrants or smugglers.
The numbers come first. Washington is spending taxpayer money on a project that now runs into private landowners, ranchers and local businesses in one of the country's most remote border corridors. Capital rewards clear rules, but property disputes and legal fights can slow even the biggest federal buildout. The market has already voted on the obvious part: the government can move dirt and steel, but it cannot repeal geography or ownership without consequences.
