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Watch: Texas Senator on the Indigenous lawsuit to stop CBP from building through Big Bend

The government waived dozens of federal protections in order to skip environmental review and other requirements, but it did not waive laws protecting religious freedom.

Pablo De La Rosa
By Pablo De La Rosa
Watch: Texas Senator on the Indigenous lawsuit to stop CBP from building through Big Bend
Visitors at Big Bend National Park look out on the Santa Elena Canyon. (Jonathan Cutrer/Creative Commons)

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Texas state senator Roland Gutierrez, one of the attorneys in a lawsuit filed on Friday to halt U.S. Customs and Border Protection construction at Big Bend National Park, spoke with ABC News on Friday.

Watch Gutierrez's interview below

  • The government waived dozens of federal protections in order to skip environmental review and other requirements, but it did not waive laws protecting religious freedom.
  • Lipan Apache descendants say the land along the Rio Grande is where they pray, gather water for ceremonies, and visit their ancestors' graves.
"Department of Homeland Security doesn't actually, in our opinion, have control or have the authority to do this because [national] parks were given to the Department of the Interior," Sen. Gutierrez told ABC News. "I think Trump thinks that he can, like he's painted the columns in the White House gold, come into federal properties and do whatever he wants with them, and we're here to say no. There's a process. There are laws in place. You just can't wave your magic wand and do whatever you want to do with our sacred areas."

What is actually being built at Big Bend

CBP says it is not building a wall through Big Bend. But a Request for Input document published in June shows the project proposes 4-to-6-foot-high vehicle fencing rather than a bollard-style pedestrian wall.

The same document maps 17 noncontiguous miles of that vehicle fencing in Brewster County alongside roughly 205 miles of patrol road up to 24 feet wide.

An example of a vehicle barrier constructed in Yuma, Arizona, by U.S. Customs and Border Protection as an example in a June Request for Input Document showing plans for Big Bend National Park. (CBP)

Laiken Jordahl, a conservation advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity, has been at the scene of construction in Big Bend.

In a social media post on Friday, he said bulldozers were cutting through where a 30-foot wall was proposed in March.

  • CBP has said current activity in the area is survey and design work.
  • The Center for Biological Diversity is separately suing DHS over the border waivers.

The Hill: Texas state lawmakers urge Abbott to help stop CBP barrier construction in Big Bend National Park

The Independent: Border chief defends barrier plan to keep national park ‘safe, secure, and pristine’

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About The Author

Award-winning journalist Pablo De La Rosa reports from the Texas-Mexico border, where he was born and raised. He covers stories from the Rio Grande Valley and North Tamaulipas.