Why Trump is tearing up a beloved national park

A bulldozer clears a pathway in Big Bend National Park, Texas, on August 12, 2026. | Kaylee Greenlee/Bloomberg via Getty Images This story appeared in The Logoff , a daily newsletter that helps you stay informed about the Trump administration without letting political news take over your life.

Subscribe here .

Welcome to The Logoff: Remember President Donald Trump’s first-term border wall? It’s still being built — through a pristine Texas national park.

What’s happening? The Trump administration is preparing to build hundreds of miles of roads through Big Bend National Park in southwest Texas as part of its latest border security project, despite a bipartisan outcry over damage to the beloved park.

Starting last week, bulldozers and heavy machinery began to clear land for the construction of about 200 miles of patrol road, new border barriers, and electronic surveillance measures to cover the park’s 118 miles of shared border with Mexico.

The construction is proceeding after the administration overrode environmental laws intended to protect places like Big Bend earlier this year.

What does a border wall look like in 2026? In this case, “wall” is a bit of a misnomer.

Despite Trump’s fixation with an actual, physical wall circa 2016, the Trump administration’s current project isn’t always 30 feet high and topped with concertina wire.

Instead, the Big Bend project is part of what the administration has described as a “smart wall,” which will combine stretches of traditional wall elsewhere along the US-Mexico border with patrol roads and vehicle barriers like those planned for the park, all blanketed with surveillance.

It’s a small retreat from the administration’s original plan for a border wall through Big Bend, which sparked outrage earlier this year.

Still, the administration intends to build about 700 additional miles of “primary” wall , spanning all four border states.

The whole project is slated to cost around $47 billion.

Why Big Bend? It’s hard to say.

As the New York Times reported earlier this year , the park has long been considered low-priority given its remote location and inhospitable weather.