Big Bend landowners sue over border wall

Marfa—A coalition of Big Bend landowners and Conserve Big Bend filed a federal lawsuit on Monday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (1:26-cv-03198), challenging the legal basis the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has used to fast-track border wall and infrastructure construction across the region. The lawsuit names DHS, Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin and CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott as defendants.

Landowners and organizers announced the filing at a press conference at the Presidio County Courthouse in Marfa.

The lawsuit centers on a legal threshold buried in a nearly 30-year-old immigration statute. Section 102 of the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act gives the DHS Secretary extraordinary power to waive dozens of federal laws and fast-track barrier construction, but only in areas the Secretary formally designates as having "high illegal entry." Landowners argue Big Bend does not meet that standard, and that DHS's own data proves it.

“Under federal statute the Secretary of Homeland Security is granted extraordinary, expedited powers to construct border barriers and sweep aside dozens of federal protections, environmental laws, and ordinary due process,” said Clara Bensen, board member with conserve big bend. “But, Congress explicitly set a strict legal prerequisite for that extraordinary power: it can only be invoked in designated areas of ‘high illegal entry.’”

According to the complaint, the Big Bend Sector spans 517 miles, more than a quarter of the entire U.S.-Mexico border yet has recorded the fewest apprehensions of any southwest border sector every year for the last 53 years. CBP's own figures show the sector accounted for just 1.16% of total apprehensions along the southwest border between fiscal years 2021 and 2025, and that apprehensions fell 74% between fiscal years 2023 and 2025, to the lowest annual total for the Big Bend Sector since fiscal year 1963 and the fewest recorded by any southwest border sector since fiscal year 1967.

"The government’s own official statistics tell the real story," Bensen said. "You cannot legally bypass the laws of this country by fabricating an emergency that does not exist. Declaring over 500 miles of steep cliff faces and perilously rugged desert an area of ‘high illegal entry’ is not just detached from reality, under federal law, it is arbitrary, capricious, and unlawful.”

The lawsuit names Conserve Big Bend and six landowners as plaintiffs: Charles L. Cecil IV, John Ferguson, David Keller, Nadine Pineda Mata, Joe Pineda and Leo Nunez Pineda.

The lawsuit asks the court to declare the Secretary's "high illegal entry" determinations for the Big Bend Sector unlawful, vacate them, and issue a preliminary and permanent injunction blocking construction of the project until the government follows the law. The complaint brings claims under the Administrative Procedure Act, alleges the government exceeded its statutory authority and acted ultra vires, and raises Fifth Amendment due process and Take Care Clause violations.

David Keller, a regional archaeologist, landowner, board member with Conserve Big Bend and plaintiff, said the lawsuit is the culmination of more than a year of organizing among landowners stretching from Fort Quitman to Amistad Dam.

“Our coalition includes 230 landowners across the region, more than 70 of whom were willing to serve as plaintiffs in the lawsuit being announced today,” Keller said. “We have brought this extraordinary challenge because, for us, the Big Bend is not an empty place on a map. It is our home. This project can be stopped. It will be stopped. And in fact, we are already stopping it.”

Keller said organizing has already slowed the project. 

"Landowner resistance has slowed this project dramatically," he said. "People have refused access agreements. Survey and construction schedules have fallen months behind. Contractors have been sent home."

CBP's proposed Big Bend Projects 1 through 5 span roughly 600 miles from Hudspeth County to Val Verde County, and the complaint states that construction plans call for a 30-foot steel bollard wall, vehicle barriers, patrol roads, lighting, cameras and sensors. About 65% of the land within the project footprint is private property. Contracts for Big Bend 1, 2 and 3 were awarded March 5, 2026, and a contract for Big Bend 5 was awarded June 2, 2026. Field work has already begun on Big Bend 1 and 3.

“Currently there is a 30-foot bollard wall proposed to be built through my family's ancestral land, not far from where we are standing here today. This wall will either separate us from our family cemetery, or it will separate us from our source of life, the river,” said Yolanda Alvarado, a fifth-generation cattle rancher and Regional Director with Conserve Big Bend said. “The land belongs to the people who work the land. We will not be overlooked, and we will not allow our history or identity as Native Tejanos and Latinos in Texas to be erased.”

Many affected landowners have received Notice of Interest letters from CBP identifying their property as land the agency may need for construction, access, surveys or appraisals, along with proposed Right-of-Entry for Construction agreements that would grant the government access to their land for up to three years. The notices warn that if landowners do not sign, the matter may be referred to the Department of Justice for acquisition of the property through eminent domain.

"My brother, sister and I are third-generation landowners near Langtry, in Val Verde County. We are stewards of ancient archaeological sites and rock art panels in and around Eagle Nest Canyon, one of Texas' premier cultural sites," said Raymond Skiles, a landowner near Langtry and former National Park Service biologist. "Research has identified nine rock art sites on our property that are in the path of or within 500 meters of the proposed border barrier. That shock from blasting and excavation will transmit through the rock, and research has already shown that can trigger irreversible detachment of painted rock flakes that might be 4,000 years old. Is this worth the $14 million a mile cost to put vehicle barriers where no vehicle has any chance of ever encountering?"

The filing follows the temporary pause of construction activity in Big Bend National Park, which the government has agreed to extend through Sept. 30, and months of bipartisan opposition from landowners, elected officials, ranchers, business owners and law enforcement across the region.

“Farmers are the cornerstone to this country, so that's why I'm here on behalf of every farmer who has been threatened by this injustice,” Joaquin Peña, an active farmer and landowner in Redford said. “If a wall goes up, we will be fenced out from using our pump to irrigate our crops and then we lose our source of income. This place is a staple in my family's history and I refuse to just let it get taken away.”

SOURCE Conserve Big Bend