1. United States
2. Letter

Do not build a wall that gives Americans LESS access to American land. Because the Rio Grande is the international boundary, this wall would have to be built inside the United States. An estimated 280,000 acres of AMERICAN LAND could be stranded on the Mexican side of the wall. Think about that: We spend billions building a wall—and when it is finished, Americans are walled off from 280,000 acres of their own country. Mexico does not pay for it. American taxpayers pay for it. American landowners lose access. American citizens lose access to the Rio Grande. American wildlife habitat is destroyed. And hundreds of thousands of American acres are left outside the barrier that is supposed to defend America. That is not securing our territory. It is functionally surrendering access to it. The land would technically remain American. But what does that mean if Americans are trapped on one side of a 30-foot wall while their land and their river access are on the other? This would be one of the worst land deals in American history: billions of American tax dollars spent to wall Americans out of America. Big Bend already has enormous cliffs, mountains, desert, extreme heat, and the Rio Grande itself. Illegal crossings there are extraordinarily rare. There is no justification for destroying one of America’s greatest landscapes while cutting Americans off from approximately 280,000 acres of the United States. Do not surrender the practical use of American territory. Do not wall Americans off from America. Stop the Big Bend wall.