After another round of drastic changes on the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol’s online border wall map prompted sharp criticism from the Texas environmentalists, the map has disappeared entirely from the federal agency’s website.
The removal comes after a round of updates posted to the map last week directly contradicted the most recent communication from a CBP official about plans for beloved Big Bend National Park.
In March, U.S. Border Patrol Big Bend Sector Patrol Chief Agent Lloyd Easterling reportedly stated that a physical border wall was no longer planned for the park and federal officials instead favored a “surveillance zone” through its wild terrain.
However, markings for physical barriers inside the park appeared again early last week on the CBP’s interactive map. The latest update also depicted portions of the border wall cutting through Mexico.
But by Thursday evening, the Big Bend Sentinel reported that the map had disappeared entirely.
“If you read our last update below from Tuesday, you might have been scratching your had [sic] about changes to the DHS smart wall map,” the paper wrote. “Well, now, that map has disappeared.”
The CBP webpage indicates the most recent change occurred Thursday. A line on the bottom of the page states, “Last Modified: Apr 23, 2026.“
As of press time Monday afternoon, the CBP “smart wall map” is still absent from the agency’s website.
Facing infrequent communication from federal officials, many Texas residents near the border relied on the map as their primary way to stay apprised of changes planned for the wall. Sometimes, lines on the map would change color overnight without warning, suggesting a drastic reversal of fortunes was in store for landowners, businesses and border ecology.
“This map has changed more times than the dictatorship of a Banana Republic,” Judge Greg P. Henington, Brewster County Judge, told the Current over the phone. “So I don’t put a lot of credence in it anymore.”
Henington was one of 14 elected county judges — representing every county along the 1,400-mile Texas-Mexico border — to send a letter to feds last week urging more transparency about its wall plans.
The judge is based in Alpine, a dusty West Texas town just outside of the prized national park. With the map gone, he said it appears local officials are getting less transparency instead of more.
“I was not aware that the map was gone,” Henington said. “So I’ll make a call to find out where the hell. Maybe they don’t want to do a map anymore. I don’t know what the deal is.”
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