The municipal development district of a small Texas border town is suing the federal government to stop construction of the border wall in the area near Big Bend National Park.
The municipal development district of Presidio — located some 250 miles east of El Paso — filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and CBP Commissioner Rodney S. Scott.
Despite having a population of just 3,000, the village is going up against the federal government with the help of activist group Democracy Forward.
The town’s filing challenges the construction of the planned border wall in the Big Bend area and asks a federal court to stop the unapproved construction before it potentially disturbs vital flood control measures near the Rio Grande and its tributaries.
The complaint and accompanying emergency motion ask the U.S. District court in the District of Columbia to require DHS, CBP and their contractors to halt construction and conduct legally required review processes as they advance efforts to build a border wall in the sensitive ecological zone, which also served as a hub of tourism and an economic engine for the region.
“Big Bend is a cherished region of Texas and our nation alongside the Rio Grande. Federal law prohibits construction that alters federal flood-control projects without the approval of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and, here, the federal government plans to build on the very levee that protects the Presidio Municipal Development District,” Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, said in a statement. “The Trump-Vance administration cannot pick and choose which laws it wants to follow and which laws it wants to ignore.”
The Trump administration also recently waived dozens of environmental laws to build roads, surveillance towers and vehicle barriers in Big Bend National Park. In total, border wall construction in the region racked up some $7 billion in construction contracts so far.
“Construction on the federal flood-control works in Presidio could compromise their integrity and leave the region vulnerable to deadly flash floods capable of destroying infrastructure, homes, farmland, and agriculture,” Perryman added. “That means real harm to real people in the area.”
This isn’t the first project the Trump administration has attempted to push through without the proper environmental reviews in the name of its war on immigration. The administration also faces suits for circumventing legally required environmental reviews as it converts warehouses into immigrant detention facilities for its planned ramp-up of arrests and deportations.
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