Originally posted August 16, 2026
The Billion Worlds newsletter was created to help open my eyes and yours to worlds of hopeful possibilities we may not have known were there. Sadly, in recent months the Trump Administration’s plans to desecrate the sacred land of Texas’ Big Bend region require focus on worlds of heartbreaking possibilities. Reporting on the ugly plans has become a necessity, one driven by love of the land and the life it supports.
U.S. Customs and Border Patrol’s framing of Big Bend National Park border work makes its decision to forgo a 30-foot steel wall across the park seem noble or magnanimous. It can also make the new “patrol roads” seem minimally invasive if not almost benign, which is likely what CBP officials intend. Their framing hides how destructive their construction, presence and ongoing maintenance will be to the park.
I searched for and found CBP’s own V.5 standards (2020) for patrol roads. They do not ease our dread. The roads across relatively flat, floodplain ground could be 40 to 60 feet wide, 20 feet of driving surface plus two 2-foot shoulders, and often a 10-foot strip of dirt on the Mexico side dragged smooth so footprints show. And, unless waived, a ditch alongside with a 10-foot minimum bottom. Often, ditches on both sides are required. If the ditches are built, access to the river side of the road will be greatly restricted. The most likely road surface is aggregate of some kind.
Read the full story at A Billion Worlds.
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