WASHINGTON (THE TEXAS TRIBUNE) – U.S. Customs and Border Protection awarded a $1.7 billion federal contract listed for border wall construction in the Big Bend region, fueling public confusion over the project after a previous assurance from a top agency official that no barriers would be built at the region\u2019s national park.<\/p>\n
The contract, awarded Monday, is designated \u201cfor border wall in Big Bend Texas\u201d in its description. The $1.7 billion allocated in the contract is the single-highest amount awarded for a contract in Texas related to the border wall, according to listings on usaspending.gov, the U.S. government\u2019s official public spending database.<\/p>\n
A second contract for $4.5 million was awarded on Thursday for \u201cresource monitoring support\u201d of border wall construction in a separate area of the Big Bend region.<\/p>\n
The new awards come a week after CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott told the Washington Examiner there would be no border wall built at Big Bend National Park because of pushback from local residents. Scott\u2019s statements to the Examiner and a statement from CBP last week to The Texas Tribune indicated the agency would instead pave roads along the border in the national park and use digital surveillance equipment.<\/p>\n
CBP did not respond to an immediate request for comment about the $1.7 billion award.<\/p>\n
Opponents of wall construction in the region have seen their frustrations with the project mount as communication from the Trump administration about the project has been limited, and there have been few formal announcements about plans in the area.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe obviously, at this point, don\u2019t trust anything, but it\u2019s like a roller coaster,\u201d said Lico Miller, a business owner in Terlingua, a small, rural town a few miles west of Big Bend National Park.<\/p>\n
An interactive \u201cSmart Wall\u201d map on the CBP website shows the agency planned to install roads and \u201cvirtual wall\u201d technology that would alert Border Patrol agents when people cross the border in the \u201cBig Bend 4\u201d region. The $1.7 billion award is intended for a Big Bend \u201csegment identified as BBT-4,\u201d according to its description. CBP officials took down the Smart Wall map in late April, but later added it once more with changes in mid-May. The map currently states that no is wall planned around the national or state park despite the awarded contract.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have made it a mission to obfuscate and make this as confusing of a process as possible,\u201d said Laiken Jordahl, National Public Lands Advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity. \u201cFrom constantly changing the online smart wall map \u2014 I mean, they\u2019ve made dozens and dozens of changes to that thing without announcing any of them \u2014 to taking it down entirely.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jordahl said that even paved roads along the border would likely be harmful to wildlife in the region and could make border crossings easier in areas where terrain would otherwise be difficult to traverse. He also said roads would inevitably make barrier installation easier in the future if CBP changed its mind later on.
\nThe Best of the Tribune in your Inbox<\/p>\n
On Thursday, the Trump administration waived environmental protections in the Big Bend region in preparation for construction, according to a federal notice first reported by Marfa Public Radio. The notice described Border Patrol\u2019s 517-mile Big Bend sector as \u201can area of high illegal entry.\u201d The sector is the least busy of the nine sectors, with agency apprehensions in the region accounting for 1.3% of more than 237,000 across the U.S.-Mexico border in fiscal year 2025.<\/p>\n
Residents point to the infrequency of border crossings in the area as only adding to the confusion and frustration.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re 1.3% of the problem. What is this billions of dollars stuff when we are not an issue?\u201d another Terlingua business owner Cynta de Narvaez said.<\/p>\n
Thursday\u2019s waivers follow similar action in February, when Trump administration officials waived over two dozen environmental laws to clear the way for a 150-mile-long border barrier through West Texas that initially included Big Bend National Park.<\/p>\n
Advocacy groups in the region filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration in mid-April arguing it had illegally waived those environmental laws and need Congress to sign off.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON (THE TEXAS TRIBUNE) – U.S. Customs and Border Protection awarded a $1.7 billion federal contract listed for border wall construction in the Big Bend region, fueling public confusion over the project after a previous assurance from a top agency official that no barriers would be built at the region\u2019s national park. The contract, awarded … Continue reading $1.7 billion contract awarded \u201cfor border wall in Big Bend\u201d amid public confusion over construction plans<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2851],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1507528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-state-news-archive"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-02 02:43:44","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1507528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1507528"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1507528\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1508046,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1507528\/revisions\/1508046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1507528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1507528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1507528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}