Advocates are calling for the Homeland Security funding bill, currently being negotiated, to include protections for Texas parks and cultural heritage sites in the path of the border wall.
During the first Trump presidency, Congress approved protections from border wall construction for several sites in the Texas Rio Grande Valley. These carveouts prohibited using federal funds to build the border wall at the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge, Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park and the historic La Lomita Chapel.
Now, President Trump is picking back up where he left off to build the border wall. The One Big Beautiful Bill, passed in July 2025, allocated a whopping $46.5 billion for border wall construction. The bill did not include protections for the Rio Grande Valley sites. Current maps on the Customs and Border Protection website show plans for the wall to plow through the wildlife refuge, state park and to cut off the historic chapel from public access. With border crossings at low levels, the federal government has already begun wall construction on multiple sites.
Friends of the Wildlife Corridor, a Rio Grande Valley nonprofit organization dedicated to improving and protecting the Santa Ana and Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuges, is urging Congress to restore the protections. They have a small window to press their elected officials while the Homeland Security funding bill is negotiated in Congress. Lawmakers have until Feb. 13 to reach an agreement, as Democrats push for more changes to federal immigration enforcement.
“These refuges and cultural sites are irreplaceable,” said Jim Chapman of the Friends of the Wildlife Corridor. “They are the heart of the Rio Grande Valley’s natural heritage and a cornerstone of our region’s economy. Congress has protected them for years and we are urging lawmakers to restore those protections now.”
The Rio Grande Valley is a popular birding destination, home to more than 540 bird species. Nature tourism draws half a million visitors to the region every year and generates $463 million annually, according to Friends of the Wildlife Corridor. The region is on migratory bird flyways and provides habitat that sustains birds across the continent.
U.S. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, a Democrat whose district covers the border from the Gulf of Mexico to McAllen, told Inside Climate News that he shared the Friends of the Wildlife Corridor’s concerns and would like protections to extend to restrict funds from what he called “the one big, ugly bill.”
“The construction of a border wall is a poor use of our taxpayer dollars and a threat to South Texas’s wildlife and tourism industry,” he said. “I am fighting to make sure these long-standing protections remain, so that visitors from around the world can continue to experience the great wonders of our cultural and historical sites.”
U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Democrat representing South Texas and parts of the Rio Grande Valley who serves on the House Appropriations Committee, did not respond to a request for comment. He previously told Border Report that he has worked to get these exemptions included every year, but that his committee did not author the One Big Beautiful Bill.
Inside Climate News has reached out to Customs and Border Protection for comment.
Residents Organize, Again, Against The Wall
La Lomita Chapel was founded as a mission in the 1800s. The current structure, built in 1899, is on the National Register of Historic Places and sits a stone’s throw from the Rio Grande. In 2017, as the border wall threatened to cut off the chapel, residents marched with Catholic clergy to protest construction.
Public outcry against the border wall led to the carveouts in federal budget bills, spearheaded by members of the Texas congressional delegation. Now residents are racing against time to protect the site once again.
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The Department of Homeland Security has issued waivers of environmental and historical preservation laws for border wall construction. Federal procurement and contracting laws have also been waived, allowing the federal government to rapidly issue contracts without public scrutiny. Billions of dollars in contracts have already been issued to construction companies.
“There is no legal protection at all for these places unless Congress acts,” said Dinah Bear, an environmental lawyer who has long worked on border issues. She said that the small areas around the chapel and parks could be monitored by federal agents without a wall.
Maps on the Customs and Border Protection website show the location of the existing border wall, areas under construction and the path of the planned border wall. According to the map, La Lomita Chapel would be trapped between the border wall and the Rio Grande. The wall would cut off parts of the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge and the Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park from the public.
The advocates are calling for explicit language in the Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill to prohibit the use of appropriated funds for border barrier construction at these sites.
In Washington on Wednesday, Democrats and Republicans appeared far apart as negotiations kicked off for a deal to reform and fund the department, with the possibility of a shutdown affecting only that agency looming if an agreement is not reached. Senate Majority Leader John Thune has already said the Feb. 13 deadline is an “impossibility,” while House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries made clear his caucus would not agree to another stopgap funding measure.
Democrats are demanding reforms to immigration enforcement after the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Jeffrey Pretti at the hands of federal agents in Minneapolis. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol, which are leading the operation in Minnesota, are part of the Department of Homeland Security and funded in the DHS appropriations bills.
The number of people crossing the border has dropped precipitously in the Rio Grande Valley Border Patrol sector. In the last three months of 2025, Border Patrol apprehended or turned back fewer than 5,000 people in the sector. In the final three months of 2024, more than 20,000 people were apprehended or turned back in the sector.
But with unprecedented federal funding for the border wall, construction is rapidly advancing across the border. In Sunland Park, New Mexico, detonations began in late January to build the wall across Mount Cristo Rey, an important religious site. In the Big Bend region of West Texas, the terrain has long been considered too remote and too treacherous to build a border wall. But the Big Bend Sentinel reports that the federal government is actively seeking leases to build a steel fence in the Presidio area.
In the last week of January, the federal government began placing buoys in the Rio Grande between the Veterans International Bridge and Monsees Road in Brownsville, Texas, as reported in the Border Chronicle.
In Laredo, Texas, local advocates are vociferously opposing plans for a border wall through the city. Tannya Benavides, an organizer with the No Border Wall Coalition in Laredo, said that while federal and state officials have long sought to build a border wall through Laredo, “it seems like more of an imminent threat now.”
Benavides said that the border wall would fundamentally change the way of life in Laredo and that residents will continue to organize against it.
“Nothing is a done deal,” she said. “It’s not over until it’s over.”
Reporting contributed by Marianne Lavelle
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Reporter, El Paso, Texas
Martha Pskowski covers climate change and the environment in Texas from her base in El Paso. She was previously an environmental reporter at the El Paso Times. She began her career as a freelance journalist in Mexico, reporting for outlets including The Guardian and Yale E360. Martha has a B.A. in Environmental Studies from Hampshire College and a master’s degree in Journalism and Latin American Studies from New York University. She is a former Fulbright research fellow in Mexico. Martha can be reached on Signal at psskow.33.
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