03/10/2026
The most powerful rebuke of the administration’s unnecessary and unjustifiably expensive Big Bend border wall comes from the region’s own border sheriffs.
“The area includes nationally and internationally significant public lands, ranchlands, tourism-based economies, and critical wildlife habitat," they wrote in a joint statement today, March 9. "Major permanent infrastructure, accompanied by lighting systems, access roads, and maintenance corridors would permanently alter one of the most remote and ecologically significant border landscapes in the United States.”
They urged “federal and state policymakers to consult directly with local law enforcement leadership and regional stakeholders before advancing permanent infrastructure projects in the Big Bend area.”
The latter is an especially interesting remark, for the simple reason that public-land management under this second Trump administration—spearheaded by oil executive and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum—claims to be all about local input and local interests.
For some reason, fascinatingly, that doesn’t seem to apply to southern Texas, historically one of the reddest and most conservative states in the nation.
Do you think federal overreach in rural Texas without even listening to local input will play well in the November midterms?
Do you think rural Texan voters will forgive the federal government for forcibly altering their way of life, destroying their livelihoods, and decimating their economies—all of which are rooted deeply, sometimes literally, in the life-giving water of the Rio Grande?
Read more about how you can join the Big Bend border wall fight in my latest article: https://ourpubliclandsandwaters.substack.com/p/border-wall-in-big-bend-is-not-practical
