The US Supreme Court has cleared the way for President Donald Trump’s administration to resume building a border wall across the remote Big Bend region of Texas, including inside Big Bend National Park.
In an unsigned order handed down on Monday, the court lifted a lower judge’s injunction that had halted construction while a lawsuit over the project plays out. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the only justice to note a dissent, without explaining her reasoning.
The court said Congress had expressed a “clear preference for expeditious border construction” that outweighs “any aesthetic, recreational, and environmental harm” claimed by the challengers. The decision is not a final ruling on whether the project is lawful; the underlying case continues in the lower courts.
The administration is seeking to build more than 300 miles of barriers and patrol roads across the Big Bend sector, which stretches for 517 miles along the Rio Grande — more than a quarter of the entire US-Mexico border. Most of the work would take place on private land, while the national park itself would receive a 17-mile vehicle barrier system rather than the 30-foot pedestrian wall planned elsewhere.
The project was challenged by the Center for Biological Diversity, a Big Bend river guide and a group seeking to preserve a historic adobe church in Ruidosa, Texas, which says the construction threatens the fragile building. They argued that waivers issued by the Department of Homeland Security to fast-track the work, bypassing environmental and conservation laws, went beyond what Congress authorised.
US District Judge Kathleen Cardone in El Paso agreed last month, blocking the work. She found that the 1996 law underpinning the waivers limits them to areas of “high illegal entry”, and noted that Big Bend has by far the lowest rate of migrant apprehensions of any sector along the southern border.
The administration told the court that gaps in the barrier in the region could be exploited by drug cartels, and that delay was costing the government money. Solicitor General John Sauer argued that the judge had no power to hear the challenge at all.
Construction in the region had already been paused in August before the injunction. Monday’s order lets work restart while the legal fight continues, giving the administration a practical win on one of the president’s longest-standing priorities.
Sources: Reuters — https://www.reuters.com/world/supreme-court-allows-trump-border-wall-big-bend-national-park-texas-2026-11-09/ ; The Wall Street Journal — https://www.wsj.com/us-news/law/trump-border-wall-big-bend-scotus-2ae1419e ; CNN — https://www.cnn.com/2026/11/09/politics/supreme-court-border-wall-big-bend-texas
