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San Ygnacio — Environmental activist Elsa Hull was arrested on Friday while protesting the presence of border wall construction crews at San Ygnacio Bird and Butterfly Sanctuary in Zapata County, the second time since June that she's been detained for demonstrating against Trump's border wall.
- A March 2026 report by the Rio Grande International Study Center warns that planned border walls and river buoys in Webb and Zapata counties would worsen flooding, threaten drinking water for millions, and endanger lives and property along the Rio Grande, calling the project a "ticking time bomb."
- Hull says surveyors have entered the nature preserve this week, a property residents argue was excluded from the 1950s Falcon Dam condemnation that gave the federal government jurisdiction over some land in the area.
"It is not part of the condemned area due to the exclusion San Ygnacio got in the 1950s when falcon dam was built," Hull told ATA from San Ygnacio after her release on Friday. "[The Zapata County Sheriff's Office] is facilitating our demise by helping the real trespassers and arresting the citizens they are supposed to protect"
Border wall crews in San Ygnacio, Texas today. Elsa Hull, an activist with the No Border Wall Coaltion, says crews have begun surveying the Zapata County Bird Sanctuary. Hull says she was arrested "without warning" when she tried to find out more, and has been released. pic.twitter.com/DQRcdD94Po
— Pablo De La Rosa (@pblodlr) August 15, 2026
Similar to her arrest in June, Hull was released after three hours in the custody of the Zapata County Sheriff's office, which was not reachable for comment on Friday night.
A social media post on Facebook she published just before her arrest shows an overview of the border wall construction happening on Friday in San Ygnacio.
Hull says she went to the sanctuary to question crews and protect land she considers off-limits to the wall, and was arrested by county deputies "without warning" as contractors surveyed the site.
- Zapata County residents say a sudden surge in land clearing, demolition, and restricted river access reflects a broader push to prioritize border militarization over local rights, according to a Friday press release by the No Border Wall Coalition.
“This is a historic community with a very rich history. What they are destroying is not just land, they are cutting off our access to the Rio Grande which we have had for almost 200 years," said Eric Avery, a long time resident of San Ygnacio. "They are destroying our legacy as a community, and as a country."
The arrest comes amid resistance to border wall construction across the Texas-Mexico border and in other parts of the country.
- Border wall construction at Big Bend National Park has united a politically diverse coalition of opponents, with about 150 protesting at Santa Elena Canyon.
- An irrigation district in the Rio Grande Valley has won a court order temporarily stopping border wall contractors from building at the Santa Ana Wildlife Refuge. The injunction was extended this week.
Further reading
The Border Chronicle published an extended interview with Hull after her first arrest in June that explains the circumstances of her arrest, her fight to protect the land and river near her home, and the broader resistance forming across Texas border communities.