In a letter sent to Secretary of Department of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin on June 16, Congressional Democrats expressed strong opposition to the agency’s recent decision to issue waivers of numerous federal environmental and historic preservation laws inside Big Bend National Park in order to make way for the construction of a border wall within park boundaries.
In issuing the waivers, DHS accompanied the decision with a six-page statement noting that the waiver of the National Environmental Policy Act, Endangered Species Act, National Park Service Organic Act, the Clean Water Act, the Historic Preservation Act, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the Migratory Bird Conservation Act, the Archaeological Resources Protection Act, the Paleontological Resources Protection Act, the Federal Caves Protection Act, and a slew of other environmental laws was needed "in order to ensure the expeditious construction of barriers and roads in the vicinity of the international land border in the state of Texas."
“These waivers endanger the intrinsic nature of the park, local economies, biodiversity, and the safety of communities along the Rio Grande River,” states the letter. “We urge you to rescind these waivers and instead offer proposals subject to public review and input. There is no border security emergency here that warrants giving CBP unfettered authority to unnecessarily destroy some of the wildest parts of Big Bend or to disregard the overwhelmingly bipartisan will of the people."
The Congress members point out that in Fiscal Year 2025, the Big Bend Sector recorded just 0.45 percent of all illegal border crossings nationwide and that “[t]he administration has failed to demonstrate that Big Bend National Park is an area of high illegal entry.”
“[E]xpedited construction of new technology and roads will disrupt the flow of the Rio Grande River, increasing flash flood risk in the park and in Laredo and other communities along the border, deplete West Texans’ access to natural resources, including safe drinking water, and choke wildlife corridors, endangering many unique species,” notes the letter. These concerns had previously been stated in a letter sent to the agency in late March.
The decision by Mullin to issue the waivers came after months of back and forth within the department over whether a wall would actually be constructed in the national park. In mid-May the Customs and Border Protection commissioner said the agency would not build a wall in Big Bend, but a week later the agency awarded a $1.7 billion contract for border wall construction in the Big Bend region.
According to details obtained by National Parks Traveler, the scope of work includes 17 miles of unspecified vehicle barriers inside and adjacent to the national park, as well as 205 miles of “system attributes (patrol roads and technology)” in unspecified locations.
“Issuing these waivers bypasses all opportunity for stakeholder comment and ignores state and federal land managers, local law enforcement, and local residents who know the area best,” states the letter in summary.
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