A federal judge has stopped the Trump administration from building a U.S.-Mexico border barrier through Big Bend National Park in Texas while an environmental lawsuit moves forward.
Reuters reported that U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone issued a preliminary injunction on Friday barring barrier work and related ground-disturbing construction in the Big Bend Sector unless environmental laws are followed. The order locks in a pause already under way and keeps the project in court rather than in the field.
The ruling lands in a national park roughly 250 miles southeast of El Paso, where Customs and Border Protection had planned roads, surveillance gear, and vehicle barriers rather than the 30-foot walls used in other border zones. For conservatives tracking southern border enforcement, the case tests how far environmental litigation can slow infrastructure meant to support control of illegal crossings.
Cardone’s order is direct. The government may not build a border barrier or related infrastructure, and it may not start ground-disturbing construction in the Big Bend Sector, unless it complies with environmental laws.
"shall not build border barrier or related infrastructure, or engage in any construction of ground-disturbing activities, in the Big Bend Sector,"
Reuters described that language as the core of the preliminary injunction. Cardone also found the plaintiffs were likely to prevail on at least some claims once the full case is heard, and that they would face serious, irreparable harm without court relief. The injunction effectively stops CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott from reversing his earlier pause.
The plaintiffs are the Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Ruidosa Church, and a Big Bend-area river guide and landowner. They brought the environmental suit challenging the project and sought emergency relief, including a petition for a temporary restraining order. People opposing the construction rallied outside the U.S. federal courthouse during that emergency hearing.
Crews began clearing land in the park in August, which triggered protests and legal action. Nearly seven weeks before Friday’s ruling, Commissioner Scott paused construction amid bipartisan criticism. Scott said he wanted the project on hold until he could visit the area, "do a personal evaluation," and speak with interested parties.
That pause did not end the dispute. Plaintiffs argued the Trump administration, including Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, had improperly granted a sweeping waiver of environmental statutes to fast-track the Big Bend plan. The court has not issued a final ruling on that claim. The preliminary injunction only holds the line while the lawsuit is considered.
President Trump has long pushed building or reinforcing barriers along the southern border to deter illegal immigration. The Big Bend fight is one piece of that larger enforcement push, which supporters tie to measurable gains such as got-aways at the southern border falling below 40 per day after earlier peaks.
Opposition has not come only from conservation groups. U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, has urged Homeland Security officials to consult local leaders and reconsider proposed barriers in Big Bend. Cornyn has argued the area’s rugged terrain already works as a natural deterrent.
That local caution sits beside a broader record of CBP activity along the Texas border, including routine interdiction work such as when CBP officers pulled 130 pounds of cocaine from an SUV at a Texas border crossing. The Big Bend plan was framed as roads, cameras, and vehicle barriers inside the park, not the taller wall designs used elsewhere.
Even so, the lawsuit treats any ground-disturbing build-out as a legal flashpoint. Judge Cardone’s order now requires environmental-law compliance before barrier-related construction can resume in the sector. Investigators and litigants still must sort through the waiver dispute, the scope of planned infrastructure, and what permanent relief, if any, the court will grant after full briefing.
Plaintiffs cast the waiver as an improper shortcut. They named the Trump administration and Secretary Mullin in that assertion. Reuters did not publish a full waiver text, a docket number, or a final merits ruling on the statutes at issue. What is public is the injunction standard Cardone applied: likely success on at least some claims, plus irreparable harm without a hold.
Mullin’s department sits at the center of other border-security claims as well, including public figures on counterterror enforcement such as reports that DHS Secretary Mullin says the Trump administration has arrested 2,210 terrorists. Those figures are separate from the Big Bend case, but they show why administration lawyers treat barrier and surveillance projects as part of a wider security file rather than isolated park works.
CBP’s stated concept for the park focused on access roads, surveillance technology, and vehicle barriers. That is a different build than the 30-foot walls described for other border stretches. The injunction still sweeps in “related infrastructure” and “ground-disturbing activities,” so the practical effect is a hard stop on construction progress in the Big Bend Sector until environmental compliance is shown or the case ends.
Authorities have not publicly released a full injunction docket caption or the complete waiver paperwork in the Reuters account. The name of the river guide and landowner plaintiff was not given. Absolute calendar dates for Scott’s pause beyond the “nearly seven weeks” marker were not fixed in the report, and the precise on-the-ground status beyond the August clearing and the later pause was not spelled out in further detail.
Courts will need to determine whether the waiver stands, which environmental statutes control, and what permanent remedy fits the evidence. Parallel border litigation elsewhere has cut different ways, including a matter in which a federal judge let the Trump administration build a border wall across a tribal reservation in Arizona. Big Bend is now on the opposite procedural footing: build first is off the table.
The policy stakes remain straightforward for readers who want ordered borders. Illegal entry, cartel logistics, and cross-border crime do not pause for park litigation. Watchdogs have also flagged shifting pressure points, including analysis that cartels are shifting toward the northern border while federal agencies still lack a full plan. Southern infrastructure fights like Big Bend still shape how quickly agencies can harden remote corridors.
A preliminary injunction is not a final judgment. It is temporary court control meant to prevent harm the judge views as serious and hard to undo. Cardone tied that harm finding to the plaintiffs’ environmental claims and to their odds of winning at least in part. The government remains free to litigate the merits, prove compliance, or adjust the project to meet the statutes the court is enforcing.
Scott’s earlier decision to pause for a personal evaluation and talks with interested parties is now backed by a judicial command. That changes the leverage. Agency preference alone cannot restart ground work in the sector. Environmental process, as defined by the laws at issue in the suit, becomes the gate.
Trump administration border strategy has treated physical barriers, technology, and patrol access as mutually reinforcing tools. In Big Bend, that package met organized legal resistance from national environmental litigants, a local church-preservation group, and a riverside landowner who also works as a guide. Senator Cornyn’s call for local consultation shows Republican unity on border control does not always mean unity on every mile of fence line.
Friday’s order keeps the dirt from moving while those arguments continue. The park remains under the injunction’s terms. The lawsuit continues. And the administration’s broader barrier agenda now carries another judicial checkpoint in West Texas terrain already described by one senior Texas Republican as a natural obstacle in its own right.
When courts freeze border infrastructure on environmental claims, the public is entitled to speed, clarity, and honest accounting of security tradeoffs, not endless process that treats enforcement itself as the problem.
