More than a hundred conservation groups and outdoor organizations in Texas are asking congressional appropriators to block funds for a border wall through Big Bend National Park.
The groups argued in a Thursday letter that allowing the Trump administration to build a wall through the park, as well as an adjacent state park, could bar wildlife crossings between Mexico and the United States, limit access to the Rio Grande and undermine the local recreation economy and the region’s heritage.
“Congress needs to step in and stop this massively destructive, universally despised trainwreck before it scars the Big Bend region forever,” Laiken Jordahl, national public lands advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement. “We won’t let Washington bureaucrats wall off the Rio Grande.”
The Trump administration earlier this month appeared to pause plans to build a physical wall through the remote region in southern Texas, changing an online map to show the area could be patrolled using technology. It’s unclear if the administration plans to attempt wall construction there in the future.
