Emails Show Border Agency Paused Big Bend Wall Work Before Court Order

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) told its contractor on September 24 to pull out of a 56-mile stretch of planned border wall along the Rio Grande, a week before a federal judge halted construction across the Big Bend region, according to emails a Presidio County official shared with Marfa Public Radio.

The order covered the “Big Bend 3” project, which runs from Hudspeth County to Presidio County under a $960.4 million contract with Barnard Construction. It told the company to “promptly execute an orderly demobilization,” Marfa Public Radio reported.

What the Emails Say

CBP wrote that it paused the work after Barnard sought more money for delays caused by a “lack of real estate clearance and road access.” The agency did not approve “the lump sum total” or the “proposed monthly standby rate” the company wanted, and it ordered equipment and crews off the job.

The directive cited “the staggering magnitude of the proposed monthly standby rate” and said “active demobilization of un-utilizable equipment and personnel is strictly required to mitigate government exposure.”

The road in question is Chispa Road, a rugged county road leading to the border. Jeff Davis County officials declined to vote on a road use agreement with Barnard on September 14, and Barnard asked CBP for more money four days later, the station reported.

A CBP project manager, Marcus Miniear, sent a redacted copy of the directive to Presidio County Commissioner Deirdre Hisler on October 28 and wrote that the suspension of work remained in place. Hisler said CBP is struggling to get enough landowner agreements across multiple stretches of the region. “It sounds to me that they’re up against a big old brick wall called people saying ‘no’ to them,” she told the station.

What Washington Told the Court

The federal government has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to lift the October 2 injunction, as the Texian Partisan reported. In its reply filed October 30, the Solicitor General argued that the order harms the government even where CBP “had voluntarily paused construction to engage with stakeholders,” because it keeps the agency from acting “on the timeline that CBP deems appropriate.” The brief also points to “financial liabilities that CBP has projected it will incur to its contractors.”

The brief does not say whether Big Bend 3 is one of the paused areas it describes, and it does not mention the September 24 directive. The challengers, led by Friends of the Ruidosa Church, argued in their October 29 response that an earlier voluntary pause “cannot be reconciled” with Washington’s claim that emergency relief is needed. The Court had not ruled as of Monday morning, the docket shows.

Whose Land

Washington’s case at the Court rests on harm from the injunction. On Big Bend 3, the government’s own directive puts the stop a week earlier, at private land and a county road in Texas the agency could not secure, and at a contractor’s price it would not pay. The work on that stretch stalled on decisions made in Texas, by a county government and by landowners, before any court ruled.