Construction on a US-Mexico border project in Big Bend national park has halted, the Trump administration said Monday, as Customs and Border Protection (CBP) evaluates the controversial project in Texas. Footage of bulldozers ploughing through the 800,000-acre (325,000-hectare) Chihuahuan desert national park emerged earlier this month, after the Trump administration did not announce and initially denied construction on a multibillion-dollar “smart wall” expansion in the park. Last year, Congress approved $46.5bn for a border wall expansion in the “big, beautiful” spending bill Donald Trump signed into law on 4 July 2025.
News of construction in Texas’s largest and most-visited national park sparked concern from environmental groups. Although many Texas Republicans have remained silent about the construction, outgoing senator John Cornyn sent a letter to Markwayne Mullin, the US homeland security secretary, asking him to halt construction on the wall. Scott, the CBP chief, has said that he expects the agency will build the first layer of the wall by the end of next year.
The contributed reporting
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