Stop the border barrier plan in Big Bend country
Vehicle Barrier System and Road Construction in Brewster County, Texas
U.S. Customs and Border Protection· Big Bend borderlands, Brewster County, TexasOfficial page ↗
From the NetworkFlagged by a PLAN reader, verified against the official page by MTJP editors.

The groups on this fight
4 groups work Texas
By footprint, from the same match the STAND matchmaker runs; none is linked to this decision in our record yet. Give straight to them; nothing routes through us.
- Big Bend Conservancy
Works Texas: they work only in Texas.
- Friends of Balcones Canyonlands NWR
Works Texas: they work only in Texas.
- National Parks Conservation Association
Works Texas: plaintiff in the challenge to the blanket Gulf oil and gas endangered species exemption, naming Padre Island among the threatened parks.
- National Wildlife Federation
Works Texas: co-plaintiff in the God Squad suit over Gulf drilling impacts on Kemp's ridley sea turtles.
Every group above is on STAND for Public Lands, with its court record, its filings and who backs it.
Customs and Border Protection plans 17 miles of vehicle barrier and about 205 miles of patrol roads through Brewster County, the wild Texas borderlands around Big Bend, and is taking public comment through July 13.
What’s at risk
One of the most remote stretches of protected country on the border: the Rio Grande corridor beside Big Bend National Park and Big Bend Ranch State Park, crossed by up to 24-foot-wide patrol roads, steel barriers, cameras, and utility corridors.
If this goes through
A June 9 DHS waiver already set aside environmental review laws for this project, so construction can proceed without the usual studies. Fact-based comments on specific impacts to wildlife, water, and cultural sites are what the public record gets.
Our plain-English read of the official notice ↗. Check it against the agency’s own words below.
4 holes in the agency’s own analysis
What the public could have raised, from the agency’s own document
- I oppose this action as proposed, and I ask the agency to weigh the specific harms below.
- I oppose CBP's plan to build 17 miles of vehicle barrier and 205 miles of patrol roads through the Big Bend borderlands in Brewster County, Texas.
- Building 205 miles of new patrol roads through the wild Brewster County borderlands will fragment wildlife habitat and permanently scar one of the most remote landscapes in Texas.
- Do not approve vehicle barrier construction in the Big Bend borderlands, where new infrastructure will block wildlife movement across the U.S.-Mexico border.
- The scale of this project, 17 miles of barrier and 205 miles of roads, will cause irreversible damage to the wilderness character of Brewster County's public lands.
Show all 6 points from the document
- Say something only you can say. The law requires the agency to consider and respond to substantive comments, and specifics are what make a comment substantive.
The reporting behind this
From More Than Just ParksAfter more than a decade chasing peak color across America, we built the foliage map we always wanted.
Ninety percent of wildfires start within a half mile of a road. The proposal is to build more of them.
Another foreign mining company wants a piece of America’s public lands. This one comes with millions of gallons of groundwater pumping and radioactive radon.
More actions that need you
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