"Construction on — or at least preparations for — a border wall through Texas’s Big Bend National Park and the larger Big Bend region have been halted through Sept. 15, and possibly longer, a federal judge said from the bench Friday.
Judge Orlando L. Garcia of the US District Court for the Western District of Texas, with the parties’ agreement, temporarily paused the Trump administration’s activities related to erecting barriers to illegal access in the desert park along the Rio Grande about 300 miles southeast of El Paso.
He said he hoped the parties could get together during that time to discuss the parameters of the project, which government lawyers insisted aren’t yet clear, and whether the technologies currently in use for detecting illegal border crossings are sufficient.
Members of a Native American group and a local outdoor outfitter sued DHS Aug. 14 to stop the project, for which the administration has already issued a $1.7 billion contract."
Mary Anne Pazanowski reports for Bloomberg Environment August 28, 2026.
