EL PASO — A judge on Friday blocked further border barrier construction in the Big Bend region, approving an environmental group’s motion for a preliminary injunction.
At the end of Friday’s hearing, U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone asked the courtroom to remain calm while she read her order aloud from the bench. She ruled that the plaintiffs’ constitutional claims to halt the construction were likely to succeed and her preliminary injunction against “ground-distrurbing activities” would remain in effect while the suit continued to play out in court.
The legal team at the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental advocacy group, filed the lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security and its secretary in April on behalf of the Friends of the Ruidosa Church, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving a historic church in Presidio County, and Danny William Miller, a Rio Grande river guide and landowner who stands to lose his property in Redford to the wall.
The lawsuit argues that the five contracted border wall projects in the region are unconstitutional for a range of reasons, including violating the constitutional separation of powers and depriving citizens of their land.
The suit documents what could be lost to border barrier construction along the Rio Grande if it’s allowed to proceed. Zeynep Graves, a lawyer with the Center for Biological Diversity, said in her closing arguments that the impact of wall construction in the Big Bend affected the community at all levels. “The harm reaches far beyond the landscape itself,” she said.
In emotional testimony, Miller compared the government building a wall across his property and blocking his access to the river to “a bullet to the head.”
Miller said once altered, the desert landscapes could never be replaced, and his work as a river guide would become “a tour of the military industrial complex, rather than a tour of the wilderness.”
Hudspeth County resident Bill Guerra-Addington testified that a border barrier would be a death sentence for his ranch on the Texas-Mexico border. “They’re taking the river away from us, and it’s devastating,” he said.
The government claims that physical border infrastructure is necessary, even in remote and lightly-trafficked areas like the Big Bend, to achieve what it calls “operational control” of the border –– zero unauthorized border crossings.
“Since the President took office, DHS has delivered the most secure border in history,” former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem wrote in a series of waivers that eased contracting laws across the entire southwest border. “More can be done, however.”
The Big Bend sector, which includes Big Bend National Park and Big Bend Ranch State Park, covers about a quarter of the length of the border but only sees between 1% and 3% of migrant apprehensions by U.S. Customs and Border Protection each year.
Since news of the government’s plans for border barriers in Big Bend broke in January 2026, a grassroots bipartisan backlash has formed across the region, slowly pushing the government to adjust its plans for physical border infrastructure –– walls, roads, fences, lights, sensors and more –– totaling over $7.5 billion in government contracts.
In response to the public outcry, DHS officials have countered with hypotheticals about what could happen in Big Bend if migrant traffic shifts in response to wall construction elsewhere along the southern border. CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott issued a statement that the agency’s goal was to protect the national park from future cartel activity.
Despite the scale of the opposition, contractors have been bulldozing new roads in the park after the government waived the Endangered Species Act and National Environmental Protection Act to support the “expeditious construction of barriers and roads” along the border.
So far, six lawsuits have been filed over the Big Bend wall. On Thursday, a judge rejected a request for a temporary restraining order in a different case that sought to halt work in and around Big Bend National Park, which had been paused through the month of September.
