Once again the Trump regime is lying to our faces. Activists have been reporting on social media with videos and photos of heavy machinery tearing through the protected land of Big Bend National Park since August 6th. In response to the public outcry CBP first denied that the bulldozers had anything to do with border security - issuing a statement last week that said the agency was regrading roads damaged by heavy rains.
Later in the week John Mennell, a CBP spokesman told the SF Gate that bulldozers weren’t clearing a road. “You don’t just scrape out a road,” Mennell said. “What they’re doing is looking at the soil, figuring out how deep you have to dig in order to put the vehicle barriers in, assessing what kind of base you have to use to put in the roads. All the things you have to do so that the engineers can go back and actually do the design.”
This week CBP commissioner Rodney Scott admitted that the bulldozers were doing prep work for planned roads and vehicle barriers to keep the park “free from fear of cartel activity.”
“What people are seeing right now is survey and design work – NOT construction of a wall through the park,” Scott said. “We are working to preserve the landscape and protect the access visitors and local businesses depend on.”
We can see what is happening with our own eyes. They’re lying to us, again. Just like these 11 documented cases where ICE/CBP shot someone and video evidence proved these were unjustified shoots and agents lied to cover up their crimes.
The $1.7 billion contract awarded to Southwest Valley Constructors Co of Albuquerque, NM is titled, “AWARD OF CONSTRUCTION TASK ORDER FOR BORDER WALL IN BIG BEND TEXAS, SEGMENT IDENTIFIED AS BBT-4.”
Dear citizen, you must reject the evidence before your eyes!
According to CBP, as reported by the Texas Tribune, the $1.7 billion will be used to construct 17 miles of vehicle barriers/patrol roads and 205 miles of mix of patrol roads and surveillance technology. It really puts into perspective how much money is being stolen from tax payers by the border wall project when you consider that a 10 year plan to build an entire US Army training complex in Grafenwoehr, Germany will only cost $1.3 billion. The facility will house, feed, and provide training grounds for 5,000 soldiers and includes modern barracks, fitness centers, equipment, training, and meal service facilities. All of that costs $1.3 billion whereas 222 miles of gravel roads will cost $1.7 billion.
No roads or walls exist in Big Bend National Park because they’re not needed! Border Patrol made only 100 arrests inside the park in 2023, and 125 arrests in 2024 as reported by Public Domain. Border apprehensions in the 500 mile Big Bend sector declined by 74% in 2025 as reported by DHS itself.
According to the planning maps shared online by CBP, they would have to dynamite Mariscal Mountain in order to install patrol roads and anti-vehicle barriers. Let the absurdity of that statement sink in. DHS is going to spend $1.7 billion and destroy a protected natural environment in order to build roads and put in anti-vehicle barriers… in an area that is so rugged that it accounts for less than .006% of all Border Patrol encounters, an area that is so rugged that it’s impassable to vehicles.
The area is so rugged and inaccessible that in order to build the roads and anti-vehicle barriers they want, they’ll have to dynamite a mountain.
Bears Ears & Grand Staircase-Escalante
It’s not just Big Bend National Park under attack. On July 13th the Trump regime slashed Bear’s Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments by nearly 90%, cutting their protected boundaries by nearly 3 million acres to open the path for exploitation from mining companies. Public Citizen reported in January that thirteen companies seeking to mine the nation’s public lands—including several Australian and Canadian corporations—spent more than $8.4 million to lobby federal agencies and Congress over the past two years alone. Trump solicited $1 billion for his presidential campaign from oil industry executives in 2024.
In total nearly 595,000,000 acres of public lands are at risk. See this interactive map.
Roadless Rule
The USDA is still working to rescind the Roadless Rule, an idea the Trump regime first floated in 2025.
Since 2001, the Roadless Area Conservation Rule has protected more than 58m acres of national forests from development, barring road construction and timber harvests. The policy came to be with huge bipartisan support; almost 2 million people submitted comments on it, the majority of whom championed the protections.
Now the US secretary of agriculture, Brooke L Rollins, is working to rescind the “Roadless Rule”, opening up public lands – our lands – for logging and other development to the highest bidder. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jun/05/trump-roadless-rule-national-forests-protection
Aidin Robbins and Alex Haraus made an excellent video covering the immense, irreversible damage that threatens our forests if the roadless rule is revoked.
If you’ve hiked the Appalachian Trail you’ve benefitted- the Appalachian National Scenic Trail passes through 775,128 acres of land protected by the Roadless Rule.
In the Southern Appalachian region, more than 375,000 acres of roadless areas contain approximately 600 miles of hiking and biking trails and over 60 climbing areas with more than 200 designated routes. The Bald Mountain roadless area near Asheville, North Carolina, is one of the largest intact forest tracts in the eastern United States and an important hunting area, as well as a wildlife-viewing area for black bears, upland game birds and white-tailed deer. The 8,600-acre South Mills roadless area, also in North Carolina, includes a premiere stretch of river for trout fishing. https://www.npca.org/articles/10475-6-reasons-to-keep-the-roadless-rule-in-place
How to Fight Back
Call your elected officials. This is the least we can do. It’s easy to be discouraged and think “well they just won’t listen.” Maybe, but they certainly won’t listen if we don’t even try. It was overwhelming public backlash that defeated Utah Senator Mike Lee’s multiple attempts to sell off public lands.
https://5calls.org/state/texas/texas-border-wall-big-bend/
If you’re in the area pop-up protests have been happening every-day. These accounts on Instagram have more information:
@SaveBigBend
@ProtectBigBend5
@NoBigBendWall
@Big.Bend.Forever
@BigBendConservationAlliance
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I want to know who all the workers are and what the companies are that are performing these destructive tasks & getting contracts to destroy national lands, these yes-men driving the bulldozers & knocking down trees, who are being paid by our tax dollars. Why don’t they say hell no? Where is the pushback? Why do they comply? Can we do anything to publicly humiliate or force them to stop??? Surely some construction co. CEO has some skeletons in his closet that he wouldn’t want getting out…???
Bulldozers ripping up our parks are somehow not making roads, they make conflicting claims while gaslighting us, destroying our shared national heritage, and grifting like only magas can do. There needs to be consequences for these people, everybody from the bulldozer drivers all the way up through the lying chain of DHS management.