Sam Karas

Last week, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) gave its largest-ever up-front award for first-time border wall construction to a segment of barrier that will span the entirety of Big Bend National Park and extend down into the Lower Canyons of the Rio Grande. Southwest Valley Constructors of Albuquerque, NM was awarded $1.72 billion for the project after months of confusion about what kind of border security would be constructed in the park.

A lawsuit alleges the Trump administration awarded most new Texas border wall contracts to two firms. One has faced legal issues and shoddy construction claims.

A new lawsuit alleges the Trump administration awarded the bulk of new Texas border wall contracts to two firms without “genuine competitive opportunities.” One of the chosen firms has faced legal issues and claims of shoddy construction work. This article is co-published with Big Bend Sentinel and The Texas Tribune as part of an initiative […]

A lawsuit alleges the Trump administration awarded most new Texas border wall contracts to two firms. One has faced legal issues and shoddy construction claims.

Lawsuit says admin gave contracts to just 2 firms — one of which faced legal issues and claims of shoddy work.

Ex superintendentes de parques nacionales solicitan al DHS que no exima del cumplimiento de las leyes para la construcción del muro fronterizo

When Everett Ewing Townsend, a 23-year-old customs inspector stationed on the border in the Big Bend, saw the South Rim of the Chisos Mountains for the first time, he knew his life was about to change. The vista — a hundred-mile panorama of lush green piñon forests giving way to forbidding desert and finally to the glittering ribbon of the Rio Grande — brought him to his knees. “It made me see God as I had never seen him before,” he recalled years later.

The latest effort to thwart border wall construction in the Big Bend through the legal system was launched on Wednesday afternoon by the Presidio Municipal Development District (PMDD) and advocacy group Democracy Forward, who are suing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in D.C. federal court and asking that a judge halt construction of the wall in the Big Bend before “deadly” impacts from flash flooding threaten the border city.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) says that plans for the border wall in and around the city of Presidio haven't been approved yet. In their response to a lawsuit brought by the Presidio Municipal Development District (PMDD), the agency revealed that contractors were still in the process of submitting designs for final consideration and that construction hasn't begun “nor is it likely to begin imminently.”