The Trump administration says it has completed 122 miles of wall at the U.S.-Mexico border, a down payment on a promise to replace or add barriers along hundreds of miles by early next year. One of the largest federal infrastructure projects in history, the construction is not without controversy. With the border region home to fragile desert ecosystems, communities, and sacred cultural sites, construction has come under fire from environmental- and indigenous-rights advocates. 

The southwest border is considered one of the most biodiverse wildlands in North America with 25 million acres of protected public lands, including six wildlife refuges and six national parks within 100 miles of the border line. A Center of Biological Diversity study concludes that new wall construction would put nearly 100 endangered, threatened, and candidate species at risk for extinction, including regional species of jaguars, wolves, and butterflies.

The use of water resources for construction has raised concerns for the survival of the region’s desert wetlands. To mix concrete, contractors have extracted around 84,000 gallons of groundwater a day from the rare aquifers that feed into the Quitobaquito Springs in Organ Pipe National Monument. An aquatic ecologist described the Springs as “essentially the only stable, reliable water in all of the western Sonoran Desert.” Additionally, wall sections will bisect the Rio Grande, Colorado, and Tijuana rivers, putting water supply, water quality, and flood control at risk.

The Organ Pipe National Monument is home to sacred Native American sites. Tohono O’odham Nation tribal leaders have denounced the federal government for blasting their ancestral burial grounds at Monument Hill during wall construction—a charge the Border Patrol disputes. Additionally, contractors have bulldozed saguaro cactuses, a crime under Arizona law. U.S. Customs and Border Protection is coordinating with the National Park Service to relocate removed saguaros, a spokesman said.

Overlaying all this is the Real ID Act of 2005, which gives the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) the discretion to waive any U.S. laws that stand in the way of expeditious wall construction. Nearly 50 laws have been waived to push the project forward, including the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Archeological Resources Protection Act. 

“The wall is being built,” senior Trump adviser Jared Kushner said recently. “We figured out funding. We figured out design. We figured out operationally how to get it done.”

Still, the continuing efforts of environmental groups and tribal councils have the potential to slow down the administration’s construction goals in ecologically and culturally protected lands.

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Editor, Migration Information Source