Originally posted August 17, 2026
Texas state senator Roland Gutierrez, one of the attorneys in a lawsuit filed on Friday to halt U.S. Customs and Border Protection construction at Big Bend National Park, spoke with ABC News on Friday.
- The government waived dozens of federal protections in order to skip environmental review and other requirements, but it did not waive laws protecting religious freedom.
- Lipan Apache descendants say the land along the Rio Grande is where they pray, gather water for ceremonies, and visit their ancestors’ graves.
“Department of Homeland Security doesn’t actually, in our opinion, have control or have the authority to do this because [national] parks were given to the Department of the Interior,” Sen. Gutierrez told ABC News. “I think Trump thinks that he can, like he’s painted the columns in the White House gold, come into federal properties and do whatever he wants with them, and we’re here to say no. There’s a process. There are laws in place. You just can’t wave your magic wand and do whatever you want to do with our sacred areas.”
Read the full article at Across the Americas.
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