230 Big Bend Landowners, Including a Two-Time Trump Voter Whose Family Has Ranched the Land Since 1920, Sued Monday to Stop the Border Wall. Their Sector Had 1.3% of Last Year's Crossings.

A coalition of about 230 landowners in far West Texas filed a federal lawsuit Monday morning to stop the Trump administration from building walls, roads and vehicle barriers across their ranches and farms in the Big Bend region. The suit, brought in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by the nonprofit Conserve Big Bend and six named plaintiffs, argues the Department of Homeland Security has no legal basis to treat one of the quietest stretches of the southern border as an "area of high illegal entry," the designation it needs to waive environmental and procedural laws and start building.

The numbers are the heart of the case. In 2025, U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Big Bend Sector, which covers 77 counties across Texas and Oklahoma and about a quarter of the U.S.-Mexico border by mileage, recorded just 1.3% of apprehensions across the nine southwest border sectors. Over the previous five years it averaged 1.16%, the lowest of any sector every year. The complaint calculates 5.99 apprehensions per border mile in Big Bend against 831.7 in the San Diego Sector. The plaintiffs say the administration invoked "extraordinary power" to wall off "one of the most remote, rugged and ecologically significant stretches of the United States."

The Big Bend project is part of a roughly $46 billion effort to fortify some 2,000 miles of the border with 30-foot steel bollard walls, vehicle barriers and detection technology. According to the lawsuit, 65% of the 609-mile Big Bend Sector project would cross private land, and landowners in Hudspeth, Brewster, Presidio and Val Verde counties have already received notices about possible seizures. The Big Bend Sentinel reported that three out-of-state contractors are slated to build more than 165 miles of wall, 200 miles of roads and 182 miles of vehicle barriers. A CBP pause on construction inside Big Bend National Park expires Sept. 30.

The named plaintiffs are Charles L. Cecil IV, John Ferguson, archaeologist David Keller, Nadine Pineda Mata, Joe Pineda and Leo Nunez Pineda, represented by the law firm K&L Gates. "For us, the Big Bend is not an empty place on the map. It is our home," Keller said. Joaquin Peña, a farmer in Redford, told the Sentinel that "if a wall goes up we will be fenced out from using our pump to irrigate our crops and then we lose our source of income." William Zuberbueler said his family's 1,800-acre holding has been whittled down repeatedly for government projects since the 1960s.

Some of the plaintiffs are the president's own voters. Laura Allen, a rancher and former Val Verde County judge who describes herself as a two-time Trump voter, said her family has held its land since 1920. "Thank you, President Trump. You've secured the border. But now let it go," she said. Under federal eminent domain, landowners cannot refuse construction; they can only contest the price in court. A prior study cited by the Sentinel found owners who fought condemnation received payouts averaging 12 times the government's opening offer. The administration has also introduced new "right of entry-construction" agreements that allow crews to begin work immediately, which advocates for landowners call intimidating and hard to understand.

Opposition in the region cuts across party lines and includes county sheriffs, elected officials, environmental groups and Native American tribes worried about sacred sites, wildlife migration and access to the Rio Grande for livestock and irrigation. DHS did not immediately comment on the suit.