Trump administration pauses construction of border wall through Big Bend National Park

{"text":[[{"start":9.16,"text":"The Trump administration has paused construction of its US-Mexico border wall through a national park in Texas, almost a fortnight after the arrival of earthmoving equipment to the remote location sparked a bipartisan outcry."}],[{"start":22.32,"text":"Rodney Scott, US Customs and Border Protection commissioner, said in a social media post on Monday that he had the previous night “put a pause” on all construction activity in Big Bend National Park, which includes a section of the Rio Grande that represents part of the boundary between the US and Mexico. Donald Trump has made stopping illegal immigration central to his political agenda."}],[{"start":46.24,"text":"Scott said he had arrived in Texas and was headed to the park to “do a personal evaluation, talk to some stakeholders, talk to local law enforcement in that area” and vowed there would be more information to follow this week. The Big Bend sector, which incorporates the national park, accounted for a small fraction of apprehensions made nationally in the year to September 2025."}],[{"start":69.12,"text":"Heavy construction equipment was moved into the park, which is located in a rugged section of the Chihuahuan Desert more than 400 miles west of San Antonio, earlier in August. Bulldozers began clearing vegetation on the river banks of the Rio Grande near the iconic Santa Elena Canyon two days later."}],[{"start":87.34,"text":"The start of construction at Big Bend marked an extraordinary encroachment into one of the US’s 63 national parks. In a remote part of Texas and nearly the size of the state of Rhode Island, the park is held in the same regard as Yellowstone, Yosemite and the Grand Canyon."}],[{"start":103.84,"text":"The Department of Homeland Security said last week that rather than the types of towering walls installed in some locations, CBP was building one new access road, adding detection technology and placing vehicle barriers in limited strategic locations."}],[{"start":118.44,"text":"The pause marks a setback for Trump, who has long insisted that the US southern border is a critical national security priority and has pushed for the construction of a continuous wall stretching from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico."}],[{"start":null,"text":"

"}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":131.32,"text":"DHS this year waived dozens of environmental laws “in order to ensure the expeditious construction of barriers and roads in the vicinity of the international land border in the state of Texas” and in mid-May awarded a $1.7bn contract to the Albuquerque-based Southwest Valley Constructors for border work in the Big Bend region."}],[{"start":152.44,"text":"While similar waivers have previously been used to build border walls through national monuments and other federally protected lands, DHS’s actions in Big Bend marked the first time they had been used for border infrastructure inside a top-tier national park, according to environmental non-profit the Sierra Club."}],[{"start":169.56,"text":"In its filing waiving those laws, DHS described the so-called Big Bend Sector as an “area of high illegal entry”. It said that while numbers have dropped since Trump’s border crackdown, “more can and must be done” to secure the boundary."}],[{"start":183.74,"text":"The Big Bend sector covers 517 miles of riverfront along the Rio Grande, which runs through the national park as well as the nearby Big Bend Ranch State Park. Despite representing a quarter of the entire 1,954-mile US-Mexico boundary, the area represented only 1.2 per cent of the 254,183 apprehensions made nationally by US Border Patrol agents in the 12 months to September 2025, according to government data."}],[{"start":213.16,"text":"Criticism about the border wall construction in the Big Bend sector has intensified in recent weeks. Republican Texas senator John Cornyn said last week he had sent a letter to DHS secretary Markwayne Mullin urging him to co-ordinate directly with Texas stakeholders."}],[{"start":227.76,"text":"“I will always support securing our border, but local officials on both sides of the aisle & other stakeholders have shared with me concerns about potential impacts in areas where the terrain already acts as deterrence for illegal crossings, whether it be 1,000-foot riverbank cliffs, deep canyons, or deserts,” he wrote in an X post."}],[{"start":247.4,"text":"James Talarico, the Democratic Party’s nominee for the US Senate in the state, last month described the wall as “useless” and a “monument to corruption” that was being built through the least trafficked section of the entire southern border."}],[{"start":259.88,"text":"“It’s not going to do anything. It’s just going to waste taxpayer dollars, it’s going to ruin the natural habitat, it’s going to decimate local businesses and tourism, it’s going to rob local landowners of the land they’ve had in their families for generations and that is unacceptable,” Talarico said."}],[{"start":281.88,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1787024079_6851.mp3"}