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For Immediate Release:
August 18, 2026
Contact: sa*@***************es.com
Press Release: Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks and Keep Big Bend Wild File Amicus Brief Against Big Bend National Park Border Construction
Last week, the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks and Keep Big Bend Wild filed an amicus brief asserting that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is acting outside its authority and in violation of the Constitution in its barrier construction around Big Bend National Park. Yesterday, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas granted their motion to appear as amici curiae in support of the suit brought by the Friends of the Ruidosa Church, the Center for Biological Diversity, and a Big Bend-area river guide and landowner that began in April.
The brief centers around the data, which make it clear that the Big Bend Sector, of which the national park is only a small part, is not an area of high illegal crossings in either absolute or relative terms. In fact, it represents less than 1% of the total along the southern border in 2025. This makes the destruction happening at Big Bend National Park not just unnecessary, but illegal, because the Administration can only legally waive federal laws as it has in “areas of high illegal entry.”
The need to support this suit has become all the more urgent as DHS began highly destructive demolition and construction work in the national park over the last two weeks. Amidst widespread outrage, the Administration has now claimed it’s pausing construction while Customs and Border Patrol Commissioner Rodney Scott travels to Big Bend. But we fear this won’t be the end of it as the Commissioner has previously claimed that the ongoing activity is not actually “construction.”
They have already bulldozed a route for new and unnecessary patrol roads across riparian areas and up steep grades, including near Santa Elena Canyon, one of the park’s most visited features, and up the side of Mariscal Mountain. If allowed to continue, the development would have a devastating impact, endangering wildlife, habitat, night skies, visitor experience, and the unique wild character of the park, as well as the economic livelihoods of local communities that rely on tourism.
Emily Thompson, executive director of the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks, said:
“The very features that make Big Bend so special are exactly why it is such a difficult place to cross the border. From the towering canyon walls taller than the Empire State Building to the remoteness that makes it one of the largest international dark sky reserves in the world, Big Bend National Park protects some of the most wild, beautiful, rugged, and inhospitable landscapes in the National Park System—all of which this Administration is now decimating, based on a lie. That means the destruction isn’t just heartbreaking, it’s illegal. The Department of Homeland Security cannot be allowed to violate the Constitution in order to destroy fragile landscapes and irreplaceable resources at one of our country’s most unique national parks.”
When the Administration first proposed to include a border wall through Big Bend earlier this year, the bipartisan public uproar convinced them to pull back, replacing the wall with other construction that is just as extensive. Since then, they have waived more than 30 federal laws, enabling them to build border security infrastructure without any accountability to the public, or environmental or cultural review. They have refused to provide detailed plans, but what they have published would be disastrous, and we have already begun to see the damage in the last two weeks.
Bob Krumenaker, former superintendent of Big Bend National Park and chair of Keep Big Bend Wild, said:
“Ever since the plan to build massive border security infrastructure in Big Bend surfaced, Texans have stood together against it. We all support a secure border, but these proposals will ravage an iconic American landscape without improving security. I worked closely with the U.S. Border Patrol as the park superintendent and—as I testified to Congress and the numbers prove—this cooperation works to keep the border safe there. Apprehensions of immigrants in Big Bend National Park represent less than .025% of the total along the southern border in the years DHS uses to justify its actions. We will not stand idly by while Washington politicians waste taxpayer money to damage this American treasure and compromise surrounding communities for virtually no security benefit.”