Big Bend Residents and Conservation Group Sue Over a 150-Mile Border Wall That Waived Two Dozen Environmental Laws

On April 16, 2026, Terlingua river guide Danny William Miller Jr., the preservation group Friends of the Ruidosa Church and the Center for Biological Diversity sued the Trump administration in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas over plans for a roughly 150-mile barrier through West Texas along the Rio Grande, including terrain in and adjoining Big Bend National Park. In February 2026 the administration had waived more than two dozen environmental statutes to accelerate the project. The plaintiffs argue it bypassed Congress in violation of the major questions doctrine.

The waiver authority at issue lets the Homeland Security Secretary set aside otherwise applicable law to build border infrastructure, which makes the scope of that delegation the central legal question. Local opposition has been bipartisan, including from area sheriffs; the Big Bend sector accounted for 3,096 of 237,538 southwestern border apprehensions in fiscal 2025, about 1.3 percent.

The suit was pending at the end of April 2026 and was amended in June 2026 to challenge a further waiver of environmental laws.