1. United States
2. Texas
3. Letter

As your constituent, I ask you to demand an immediate halt to border-barrier construction, land clearing, road building, blasting, staging, and permanent lighting throughout the Big Bend region—not merely inside Big Bend National Park. The assurance that a 30-foot wall will not be built inside the park is not enough. Officials have repeatedly changed their maps, terminology, and plans. They said no wall would be built, yet contractors and heavy equipment entered the park, vegetation was cleared, and the National Park Service announced closures for an “active, large scale construction project.” These reversals have destroyed public trust. Calling it a “vehicle barrier,” “smart wall,” “patrol road,” or “detection system” does not make the destruction less real. Protecting only the national park is inadequate. The national park, Big Bend Ranch State Park, the Rio Grande, Black Gap Wildlife Management Area, private ranches, nearby communities, and lands in Mexico form one interconnected ecosystem. Wildlife, waterways, migration corridors, and pollinators do not stop at political boundaries. Officials have not shown a vehicle-crossing problem remotely proportionate to this destruction. Much of this terrain is river, desert, mountains, cliffs, and canyons where vehicles cannot simply cross. Cutting roads into remote country may make it easier to reach while permanently destroying habitat. Continuous or high-intensity lighting is unacceptable. Big Bend’s internationally important dark skies support wildlife, bats and other pollinators, astronomy, research, tourism, and human health. Once roads are cut, vegetation bulldozed, archaeological sites disturbed, and darkness flooded with artificial light, the damage cannot be undone. Please enact binding protection for the entire region; stop all work and remove the contractors and equipment; withdraw the environmental waivers; prohibit permanent high-intensity lighting; disclose all plans and contracts; and require a full Environmental Impact Statement with genuine public participation. Do not accept another temporary promise or change in terminology. Stop this project before more irreversible damage is done.