The remote, wild landscapes of the U.S.-Mexico border are undergoing a dangerous transformation. Under the banner of border security, the Trump administration is overriding decades of conservation work to build military infrastructure, dismantling environmental protections and stripping away public access.
These areas are not just empty desert; they include vital wildlife habitat and are important places for hikers, hunters, and other outdoor enthusiasts whose activities fuel local economies. Increased military activity, physical infrastructure, and construction threaten to irreparably damage these ecosystems while locking Americans out of their public lands.
The militarization of these public lands is happening rapidly, without public input and without environmental regulation. The administration is bypassing foundational environmental laws to fast-track construction and build on protected areas. This process disrupts critical wildlife habitats, risks damaging sacred Indigenous sites, and allows for heavy military equipment to operate in sensitive ecosystems.
Recent news about a planned border wall project through the interior of Big Bend National Park in Texas sparked a fierce backlash over this treatment of protected public lands. Following bipartisan outcry over the plans, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) quietly updated an online map to show only “technology” planned for the national park, but these plans could change back at any time with no Congressional approval and no public notice. Just last week, the administration awarded a $1.2 billion construction contract that will wall off many of the most beloved stretches of Big Bend Ranch State Park.
The growing militarization of America’s borderlands
Soon after the start of the second Trump administration, there was the quiet seizure and transfer of public lands to the Department of Defense. Following Trump’s declaration of a state of emergency along the southern border on the first day of his second term, the administration began to transfer public lands management to the military and redesignate that land as national defense areas. These areas function as massive expansions of existing military installations, and now cover at least one-third of the southern border, with more expansions planned.
In April of 2025, the Trump administration transferred the “Roosevelt Reservation,” a historic 60-foot-wide strip of land stretching 632 miles along the U.S.–Mexico border. Days later, Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum announced the transfer of 109,000 acres of public land in New Mexico to the U.S. Army. Burgum justified the land transfer as a “resource protection” measure, even though the resulting military deployment and combat vehicle traffic could irreparably damage the ecosystems they claimed to be protecting from human activity.
Across these new national defense areas, increased military presence and border construction have resulted in potentially irreparable destruction to sensitive desert ecosystems and disruptions to wildlife habitat and movement across the landscape. Armored vehicles are driving over sensitive desert ecosystems, and new infrastructure is being constructed without environmental reviews.
The threat of militarization on public lands gained public awareness in recent months, when former Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem issued a waiver to bypass laws—including the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Antiquities Act—in order to expedite the construction of a border wall through the Big Bend Region. The plan called for a 30-foot steel barrier running through the park’s Rio Grande corridor.
The proposed plan was met with fierce bipartisan backlash against the idea of a border wall in Big Bend National Park and its neighboring state park, an area that offers the darkest skies in the contiguous United States. “It’ll ruin this county,” said Brewster County Sheriff Ronny Dodson. “If it’s a real wall, it will devastate us. We don’t have oil and gas, we have tourism.”
Americans locked out of their public lands
The impacts of military activity aren’t limited to remote, obscure corners of the desert; they are cutting off public access for the thousands of people who visit these lands for recreation.
Hikers are now blocked from accessing the southern terminus of California’s Pacific Crest Trail because of land that was transferred to the U.S. Navy in 2025. It is tradition for Pacific Crest Trail hikers to touch both the Mexico and Canada borders during their thru-hikes, but the southern border is no longer accessible. Hikers on the Arizona Trail reported a similar issue with access to the southern terminus of that trail. The Arizona Trail Association (ATA) reported in November that razor wire installed by DHS was blocking hikers from reaching Border Monument 102 at Coronado National Memorial, where thru-hikers traditionally start or end their trip.
Access to the southernmost 1.1 miles of the Continental Divide Trail has also been severely restricted. In late September, the Continental Divide Trail Coalition said that the federal government would begin requiring hikers who wanted to access those trails to apply for a permit from the military and undergo a background check, and that non-U.S. citizens would require a government sponsor and an escort.
Because this land is now managed by the Department of Defense as a National Defense Area, anyone caught entering without a permit faces federal trespassing charges. Convictions for these charges can carry up to a year or more in prison and $100,000 fines. This threat doesn’t just apply to those attempting to cross the border; it effectively criminalizes scientists, hunters, and hikers accessing these areas.
Bypassing environmental laws
This has all been accomplished by bypassing foundational environmental laws by way of the REAL ID Act of 2005. This legislation contains a provision granting the Secretary of Homeland Security unilateral authority to waive any local, state, and federal laws to ensure the expeditious construction of border barriers and roads. Former DHS Secretary Noem used this power—alongside provisions from the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 and the Secure Fence Act of 2006—to fast-track border wall construction on public lands without public comment periods or environmental reviews.
These waivers constitute the largest waiver of federal law in American history. They allow the administration to ignore dozens of environmental, public health, and cultural protection laws, including NEPA, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the Antiquities Act in order to allow bulldozers to tear through places like the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge, among other projects. Construction is also able to bypass the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, putting sacred Indigenous sites at risk of irreparable harm. These laws were passed by Congress because the American people wanted them to be enforced, not flippantly discarded whenever an administration decides they’re inconvenient.
In one destructive incident, environmental advocates witnessed contractors using dynamite to blast a trench into the foothills of Coronado Peak in Arizona, which is located within Coronado National Memorial. In a pattern that has now become routine, the Department of Homeland Security conducted no environmental impact reports, cultural assessments, or public outreach before the blast.
Wildlife and ecosystem impacts
The U.S.-Mexico borderlands contain some of the most biodiverse ecosystems in North America, and contain important habitats and migration paths for species like pronghorn, black bear, jaguar, Mexican gray wolf, ocelot, javelina, and more. The U.S.-Mexico border wall has disrupted wildlife for years, even before the current construction push. A 2024 study showed that certain types of border walls can lead to an 86 percent reduction in wildlife crossings and a 100 percent reduction in crossings by large animals such as bears, mountain lions, and deer.
Particularly under threat by border construction are jaguars, which are endangered in the U.S. Jaguars were driven to local extinction in the 20th century, but often cross the border from Mexico. The Center for Biological Diversity released a 2025 analysis that showed plans for 27 miles of new border wall in the San Rafael Valley south of Tucson would fracture key habitat for jaguars and other endangered species. The area is one of the last remaining unwalled wildlife corridors connecting Arizona and Mexico and is the site of the most documented jaguar sightings in the U.S.
Border walls are also known to have other wide-ranging ecological consequences. For instance, some walls can act like dams during monsoon season, which causes flooding and erosion that alters the landscape. This was well documented back in 2008, when a flash flood at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument caused water to pool at the border wall 2 to 7 feet high, causing water that usually flows north to south across the border to flow laterally and result in flood damage to private property, government offices, and nearby businesses.
Looming threats
Congress is considering bills that further threaten the integrity of America’s borderlands: the Border Lands Conservation Act (introduced by Senator Mike Lee of Utah) and the Federal Lands Amplified Security for the Homeland (FLASH) Act (introduced by Representative Juan Ciscomani of Arizona). If passed, these bills would effectively override protections from the Wilderness Act of 1964, which explicitly prohibits permanent roads, motor vehicles, and structures in designated wilderness areas. They would grant DHS the unilateral authority to build roads, bases, and “tactical infrastructure” in any protected wilderness or federal land within 100 miles of both the northern and southern borders.
The legislation would also permit the deployment of remote video surveillance systems, observation points, detection devices, and motion sensors, as well as allow for motorized and aircraft patrols, converting protected parks and protected areas into de facto military zones under constant surveillance. This would strip away the public’s freedom to recreate in peace, as well as increase stress on wildlife populations due to noise, lights, and human activity.
In addition to legislative efforts, executive policies are accelerating the militarization of public lands. In September 2025, Secretary Burgum issued Secretarial Order 3442, which redirects conservation funds away from the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) to install mass surveillance infrastructure. Rather than being used to protect nature, this LWCF money is now being siphoned to deploy video surveillance systems, biometric detection devices, and guard posts directly inside and adjacent to parks and outdoor recreation areas. This constitutes an illegal overreach, as Congress has explicitly dictated the purpose of LWCF funds; There is no legal exception allowing these dedicated conservation funds to be used to convert parks into high-tech surveillance zones.
Meanwhile, Trump’s Executive Order 14314 attempts to force the National Park Service and other land management agencies to ID visitors and track their residential or citizenship status. While framed as a mechanism to charge increased entrance fees for nonresidents, advocates warn that the order functions as a way for the government to track and record park visitors without consent, further enabling immigration enforcers to target community members accessing public lands.
Conclusion
The recent outcry over border construction in the Big Bend region perfectly illustrates both the threat facing our protected landscapes and the strength of bipartisan support for keeping public lands protected and accessible to all Americans. When outdoor enthusiasts, local business owners, conservation advocates, Texas sheriffs, judges, and ranchers spoke out in opposition to the idea of a physical wall in a national park, the administration was forced to take notice. But while the administration’s public messaging for the project has shifted for now, the threat remains. Even if the project does proceed without a physical barrier, added technology in a national park will come with its own impacts, especially on the freedom of people to enjoy the outdoors in peace without constant surveillance.
The waivers that allow the administration to flout the law are fully in place, granting standing permission for future overreach. The walkback on a physical wall in one area does not undo the groundwork for similarly destructive plans that are moving forward in other areas. Plans for massive physical barriers are still in Big Bend Ranch State Park, and sensitive areas like the San Rafael Valley remain under imminent threat from new construction and increased military activity.
If the administration continues on its current course, these iconic landscapes will continue to be collateral damage. Border security should not require the permanent sacrifice of America’s public lands, and it should not come at the cost of the heritage and economies of the communities that surround them.
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I’m just sure that a state park must be a hot bed of illegal migration. (She said sarcastically)