Federal government waived dozens of laws to fast-track the $1.7 billion construction project in Big Bend. Fierce local opposition crossed party lines and a lawsuit was filed by environmental groups.
Page B1From§Eachthe coffee break edition — 3 October 2026
DHS waived dozens of laws to wall Big Bend, paused itself, unpaused itself, and was blocked in court.
As it ran on the front
The Department of Homeland Security did not break dozens of federal laws to run a wall through Big Bend. It waived them. Different verb, better verb, and it is the first line of a document trail worth walking clause by clause, because the trail keeps the same four beats: waiver, pause, restart, injunction.
Beat one. To fast-track the $1.7 billion project through the Big Bend region — part of a larger plan for hundreds of miles of walls, vehicle barriers and other border infrastructure — the federal government waived dozens of laws. All together now, down the list: the requirements federal construction would otherwise have to satisfy, set aside in writing, in advance, so that nobody would later have to argue about whether they had been satisfied.…
…(cont) Beat two. In early August, crews were filmed bulldozing pristine desert wilderness, and the pushback crossed party lines, which Democracy Now! was moved to describe as rare. By August 19 the work was paused. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott had ordered the halt earlier that month; on August 28, attorneys said after a federal court hearing that the pause now ran through September 15. On September 3, according to court documents, Federal District Judge Jason Pulliam wrote that it was extended again, through the end of the month. All together now — paragraph four, where a pause acquires a fresh expiration date and the project acquires two more weeks of quiet.
Beat three. On Friday, September 18, CBP told the Associated Press that installation of the thirty-foot panels along this portion of the southern border was already underway. The pause had twelve days left on it. Twelve days later, on September 30, the government did not so much lift the pause as let it lapse: the court document, posted by Laiken Jordahl, national public lands advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity, said CBP "will lift the pause on ground-disturbing activities." Conservationists promised court.
Beat four. On Friday, October 2, after a hearing in El Paso, US district judge Kathleen Cardone temporarily blocked the expansion of the wall and other security infrastructure across the Big Bend region. Environmental groups had sued. The objectors on the record include local landowners, business owners, public land advocates and politicians from both parties — a coalition that agrees on the position of the sun and very little else.
The waiver is the whole machine. Strike dozens of laws at the front end and there is nothing left to enforce at the back end except a lawsuit and a judge's calendar. The pause belonged to the agency. So did the restart. The fourth beat is the one it did not schedule, and that one is temporary.
“They waived the laws first — that's the whole tell. You don't have to win a permit fight if you deleted the permits, and you don't have to answer a bipartisan town meeting if the pause you announced is a pause you can expire on your own. Right now the only thing between a national park and a thirty-foot panel is one judge in El Paso holding a temporary order.”
“The waiver authority is statutory, it's authorized, Congress handed them — did I say handed? Granted. And there was a pause, which shows responsiveness, and then the pause ended, which shows the pause had an end date, that's how pauses work. If the park were genuinely the issue here, I'd expect the park service to be in that lawsuit, and I'd point out that the plaintiffs are environmental groups. Why is that funny? That's not funny.”
The receipts
The Trump administration on Wednesday allowed a temporary pause on border construction in and around Big Bend National Park in Texas to expire, prompting renewed vows from conservationists and other opponents to fight the contentious project in court. Laiken Jordahl, the national public lands advocate at the Center for Biological…
Plan to install barriers through popular national park sparked outrage from advocates and politicians alike A federal judge has temporarily blocked the Trump administration from expanding the border wall and other security infrastructure across the Big Bend region of west Texas, where contentious plans to build roads and vehicle barriers…
· Trump administration begins construction on Texas's Big Bend border wall from the morgue, 19 Sep 2026
· CBP extends pause of some border construction, including in Texas national park from the morgue, 3 Sep 2026
· Bipartisan Outcry Forces Trump to Pause Border Security Project in Big Bend National Park in Texas from the morgue, 19 Aug 2026
· Big Bend border wall construction pause extended to September from the morgue, 28 Aug 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.