They’re Paving Paradise in Big Bend and Calling It ‘National Security’

Let me tell you something. I’ve been to Big Bend. We took the kids two summers ago, piled into the minivan, drove nine hours through West Texas heat that could melt a juice box. And when we got there, when we stood at the edge of Santa Elena Canyon and looked down at the Rio Grande cutting through that ancient rock, my youngest, who was six at the time, grabbed my hand and said, “Mom, it’s so big.”

He’s right. It is so big. And the federal government is about to wreck it.

Adbar (CC BY-SA 3.0) via Wikimedia Commons

Right now, crews are already out there clearing vegetation near Santa Elena Canyon. U.S. Customs and Border Protection swears construction “hasn’t officially started.” They told a judge the workers are just “re-grading roads damaged by recent storms.” You know what, I’ve heard that kind of talk before. It’s the same energy as when my teenager says she’s “just organizing her desk” and I find a bag of makeup she bought with my credit card. Big Bend National Park posted on its own website that Glenn Springs Road is closed “in furtherance” of the project to “mitigate risk associated with an active, large scale construction project.” Active. Large scale. But sure, nothing’s started yet. Who do they think they’re talking to?

A river guide named Billy Miller, a church preservation group, and the Center for Biological Diversity filed suit in federal court back in April. They’re asking a judge to speed things up because, and I cannot stress this enough, bulldozers are literally already there. The lawsuit targets waivers issued in February by former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who decided federal environmental laws just shouldn’t apply to this project. Laws that exist for a reason. Laws that normal people have to follow when they want to put up a shed in their backyard.

P. Hughes (CC BY 4.0) via Wikimedia Commons

Here’s the number that made me put my coffee down. The Big Bend Sector covers roughly a quarter of the entire southern border. It accounts for 1.3 percent of all Southwest border apprehensions. One point three percent. A quarter of the border, barely any crossings. So why are they rushing to pour concrete and string razor wire through one of the most beautiful places in this country? Because it looks tough. Because someone in Washington needs a photo op.

Miller said it better than I can. “No one comes to Big Bend to see steel walls and razor wire. If they build this, they’re not just destroying a landscape, they’re wiping out our way of life.” That man runs a river guide business. That’s a job. That’s a livelihood. That’s somebody feeding their family. And the government is treating him like an obstacle.

Greg Hernandez (BY) via wikimedia

More than 130 organizations have pushed back. Local sheriffs, residents, business leaders, elected officials from both parties. CBP quietly revised its maps after the outcry, swapping out some wall segments for “detection technology,” which they haven’t even bothered to define. But hundreds of miles of border upriver from the parks are still on the chopping block. And the agency has said barriers in the parks are “still in the planning stages,” which is bureaucrat-speak for “we’ll do it when nobody’s looking.”

I’ve done my research on this. I’ve read the court documents. I’ve looked at the photos the activists took. And I have one question for whoever is managing this project: What exactly are you protecting us from in a place that has the lowest number of crossings on the entire border? Because from where I’m standing, the only thing being threatened is a canyon that took millions of years to form and a way of life that a bunch of suits in Washington couldn’t find on a map.