{"id":285263,"date":"2026-05-09T01:59:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T01:59:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/285263\/"},"modified":"2026-05-09T01:59:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T01:59:20","slug":"big-bend-border-wall-plans-cancelled-for-national-park-after-backlash-border-patrol-commissioner-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/285263\/","title":{"rendered":"Big Bend border wall plans cancelled for national park after backlash, Border Patrol commissioner says"},"content":{"rendered":"

Plans to build portions of the border wall in Big Bend National Park are off after bipartisan backlash over the proposed construction, a top U.S. Customs and Border Patrol official told the Washington Examiner<\/a>.<\/p>\n

CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott said the Trump administration was no longer planning to construct the wall within the national park following pushback from residents, the Examiner reported this week.<\/p>\n

\u201cBig Bend National Park has some just, like, unbelievably huge granite cliffs. It would be kind of silly to put like a 30-foot border wall on top of a 90-foot granite cliff,\u201d Scott said in an interview with the Examiner. \u201cSo what we\u2019re trying to convey is that we are going to have meaningful border security in that entire area.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scott\u2019s comments only referenced the national park and did not detail whether CBP\u2019s withdrawal from wall construction also included the nearby Big Bend Ranch State Park or private property in the region. <\/p>\n

CBP officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment about updated plans.<\/p>\n

Instead of a wall, federal officials will pave roads along the border in the national park and make use of drones and other digital surveillance equipment, Scott said. News of the cancellation comes after weeks of upheaval<\/a> in Texas as elected officials from both political parties and residents asserted that construction in the park would be a waste of resources.<\/p>\n

In February, Trump administration officials waived over two dozen environmental laws to clear the way for a 150-mile-long border barrier through West Texas, including Big Bend National Park. <\/p>\n

Then in early April, an interactive map on the CBP website showed the agency planned to instead install \u201cvirtual wall\u201d technology in the region that would alert Border Patrol agents when people cross the border. CBP officials took down<\/a> the map in late April, and it is not currently available on the agency\u2019s website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Local residents near Big Bend sued the Trump administration in mid-April, arguing that federal officials waived the regulations illegally in pursuit of the construction project.<\/p>\n

Funds acquired through the \u201cOne Big, Beautiful Bill,\u201d President Donald Trump\u2019s key spending package, direct CBP to construct a multifaceted barrier system, or a \u201cSmart Wall,\u201d across the southern border with Mexico. The proposed barriers would include bollard walls and patrol roads, as well as surveillance technology and floating buoys placed in the Rio Grande.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Plans to build portions of the border wall in Big Bend National Park are off after bipartisan backlash…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":285264,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9720,68459,2668,61695,104794,145,2327,1724,287,27,29,293,28,58603],"class_list":["post-285263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-big-bend","tag-big-bend-national-park","tag-border-security","tag-border-wall","tag-customs-border-patrol","tag-donald-trump","tag-environment","tag-immigration","tag-politics","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-legislature","tag-texas-news","tag-u-s-border-policy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285263\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}