The US Northern Command reports it has “defeated” 11 cartel drones by the Army’s Multipurpose High Energy Laser (AMP-HEL) as of September 4, 2026. The Army first deployed the laser system in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas on August 25, 2026. Each laser blast uses about $3 worth of energy, which is considerably less than the value of the target it shoots down.

Authorities along the Texas-Mexico border have been sounding the alarm about the cartel drones for several years. Gloria Chavez, formerly the Chief Border Patrol Agent of the Rio Grande Valley Sector, told shocked Congress members in 2023 that the number of cartel drones along her stretch of the border outnumbers the drones available to her agents by 17-to-one.

Her testimony was mirrored by a South Texas Sheriff:

“In the past 31 days of 2023, there have been 1,937 Mexican Cartel drone incursions in three South Texas border counties,” -Sheriff "Benny" Martinez, Brooks County, Texas

The Air Force General in charge of U.S. Northern Command told a Senate Armed Services Committee in March, 2024 that there are likely more than 1,000 incursions by unmanned aircraft systems along the U.S.-Mexico border each month.

“The number of incursions was something that was alarming to me as I took command.” - Air Force General Gregory M. Guillot

The cartels openly brag about their drone fleets by posting video to the internet showing them in action:

The image below shows a Cartel del Noreste (CDN) drone operator's camera view of migrants being moved by one of its smuggling guides on the US side of the Rio Grande near Laredo. If the Border Patrol is spotted near the group, the cartel will use radios or cell phones to warn the guide to take evasive action.

In one infuriating instance, cartel drone operators could be heard laughing about the fatal crash of a National Guard helicopter involved in a counter-narcotics operation in March, 2024 along the Rio Grande in footage they posted to social media:

And while the cartels mostly use their drones for surveillance, they have also used them to fly drug loads across the Rio Grande into Texas:

But now, the US Army’s Northern Command is actively taking on the cartel drone fleets along the Southern Border through “Operation Ardent Vanguard.” In addition to the eleven drones it recently disabled with lasers, more than 300 drones have been “defeated” this calendar year (more than 100 in August alone), primarily by jamming the radio signals the cartels use to control them.

The cartel drone operators aren’t laughing now.

Are you surprised at the extent of Mexican Cartel drone activity along the US Southern Border?

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The US State Department, citing “threat information,” has issued a Security Alert to US Government employees advising that “activities in, and travel to, Nogales , Sonora , Mexico have been restricted to essential movement during daylight hours only. We are alerting U.S. citizens of this threat and change in posture. As a reminder, the U.S. Travel Advisory designates Sonora as a Level 3 (“Reconsider Travel”) area due to terrorism, and crime.”

(Nogales, Mexico is across the border from Nogales, Arizona)

The “do not travel” advisory has been issued for the State of Sonora by the U.S. government to U.S. residents because:

• There is a risk of violence in the state from terrorist groups, cartels, gangs and criminal organizations.

• Travelers should stay alert and aware of their surroundings while traveling in Sonora. Criminal activity and violence may occur in any area of Sonora.

• U.S. government employees may travel to: Hermosillo, Bahia de Kino, San Carlos-Nuevo Guaymas, Alamos, and Puerto Libertad.

• U.S. government employees must follow the below travel restrictions for Nogales, Puerto Penasco, Cananea, Agua Prieta, and eastern and southern Sonora.

• Review a map of restricted areas.

Nogales, Sonora, Mexico:

• U.S. government employees may not use any taxi services, public buses, or ride-share applications in Nogales.

• U.S. government employees may travel to the following areas in the municipality of Nogales:

  • Highway 15 corridor between the DeConcicini Port of Entry and the intersection of Highway 15 and Highway 15D. The Highway 15 corridor includes:

    • The area south of the Council of the Federal Judiciary building on Calle Ochoa, between Avenida Alvaro Obregon and Adolfo Ruiz Cortinez, and to the intersection of Highway 15 and Avenida Alvaro Obregon.

    • The area south of the intersection of Highway 15 and Avenida Alvaro Obregon, including Adolfo Ruiz Cortinez, and to the Donaldo Colosio Plaza.

  • The Boulevard Luis Donaldo Colosio corridor between the Mariposa Port of Entry and the intersection with Highway 15. The Boulevard Luis Donaldo Colosio corridor includes:

    • The industrial area east of Boulevard Luis Donaldo Colosio and between Avenida 5 de Febrero and F. Bustamante.

    • Boulevard El Greco and the area northwest to Avenida Tecnologico.

  • The area southeast of Avenida Tecnologico, between Highway 15 and Boulevard Luis Donaldo Colosio, and south to the intersection of Highway 15 and Boulevard Luis Donaldo Colosio.

  • The Ignacio de La Torre Avenue de los Nogales Corridor between Boulevard El Greco and its intersection with Highway 15. The Ignacio de La Torre Avenida de los Nogales Corridor includes:

    • The Guarnición de la Plaza Militar.

    • The area between Highway 15 and Ignacio de La Torre Avenida de los Nogales.

Travel between Hermosillo and Nogales

• U.S. government employees may travel between Nogales and Hermosillo during daylight hours only and via Federal Highway 15 only.

• U.S. government employees may not use any taxi services, public buses, or ride-share applications.

• Travelers should be cautious and avoid unnecessary stops due to security incidents, including occasional armed carjackings.

• Shootings have occurred along this route during the day.

Actions to Take: 

• Exercise increased caution and be aware of your surroundings.

• Seek shelter in the event of an incident.

• Notify friends and family of your safety in the event of an incident.

• Follow instructions from Mexican law enforcement.

• Monitor local media for updates.

For U.S. citizens needing assistance:

Contact Form

U.S. Embassy and Consulates in Mexico

From Mexico: (55) 5080 2000

From the United States: 011 52 55 5080 2000

Department of State – Consular Affairs: +1-888-407-4747 or +1-202-501-4444

Links:

Mexico International Travel information

U.S. Citizens in Mexico WhatsApp Channel

U.S. Passports

Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP)

Department of State on Facebook and X

U.S. Embassy in Mexico on Facebook and X

U.S. Consulate General in Nogales on Facebook  and X

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(This article was written by Madison McVan of The Minnesota Reformer, an affiliate of The States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization & is republished by US Border News with permission under a Creative Commons license)

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Christian Castro, who is accused of shooting Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis through the closed door of a Minneapolis home in January, turned himself in to federal authorities on Thursday, the Associated Press and other outlets reported.

Castro was indicted by a federal grand jury this week on a charge of making false statements related to the shooting. Matthew Evans, the assistant U.S. attorney in Minnesota in charge of the case, was pursuing hefty civil rights charges against Castro, but was instructed by Justice Department officials in Washington, D.C. to downgrade the charges.

Evans was fired, CBS News reported Thursday, citing four unnamed sources familiar with the matter.

The federal indictment was still under seal as of Friday morning.

Castro accused Sosa-Celis and another Venezuelan immigrant of assaulting him with a broom and a snow shovel before Castro opened fire, leading to assault charges against the two men that were dropped after surveillance footage proved Castro’s statements false.

Castro is also charged in Minnesota with four counts of second-degree assault and one count of falsely reporting a crime. He was arrested in May by Texas Rangers, a state law enforcement agency, and held in a Texas county jail for 90 days. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott blocked Castro’s extradition to Minnesota, prompting a lawsuit from Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, which failed to stop Castro’s release from jail last week.

Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty released a statement Thursday saying Castro is expected to appear first in a federal court in Texas, and a date will be set for his appearance in a Minnesota federal court.

“Despite Gov. Abbott’s best efforts to shield Mr. Castro, we will see him soon,” Moriarty said.

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Federal prosecutors have charged U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Christian Castro with making false statements about the shooting of Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis in Minneapolis Jan. 14, 2026, the New York Times reported Thursday, citing an unnamed person familiar with the case.

The Times reported that the indictment will be unsealed after Castro is taken into custody.

The federal charge against an ICE agent is a rare move for the administration of President Donald Trump, which still has not charged any of the agents involved in the January killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.

The single charge against Castro is far less than the civil rights violations originally sought by local federal prosecutors. But officials at the Department of Justice in Washington D.C. insisted the charges be significantly downgraded, according to reporting from ProPublica.

Castro is also charged in Minnesota with four counts of second-degree assault and one count of falsely reporting a crime. He is accused of firing his gun through the closed front door of a north Minneapolis home, hitting Cesar-Solis in the leg and endangering other people in the home.

Castro accused Sosa-Celis and another Venezuelan immigrant of assaulting him with a broom and a snow shovel before Castro opened fire, leading to assault charges against the two men that were dropped after surveillance footage proved Castro’s statements false.

In an email obtained by ProPublica, Matthew Evans, the assistant U.S. attorney in Minnesota in charge of the case, told attorneys for Sosa-Celis and other victims that he “objected in the strongest possible terms” to his bosses’ decision not to pursue civil rights charges.

Castro was released from a Texas county jail on Aug. 27, 90 days after his arrest by Texas Rangers, a state law enforcement agency, pursuant to the warrant related to his Minnesota charges.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott blocked Castro’s extradition to Minnesota, prompting a lawsuit from Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison. A federal judge in that case declined to force the extradition, paving the way for Castro’s release.

Minnesota authorities told the federal court that Castro was in a romantic relationship with a woman in Mexico and owned property there, making him a flight risk.

Do you believe ICE Agent Christian Castro should face criminal charges for the Minnesota shooting?

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The US Coast Guard has intercepted more than 70 migrants attempting to illegally enter the United States in recent weeks. The most recent incident happened on Friday, August, 28, 2026, when the captain of a 30-foot pleasure craft 88 miles offshore of the Santa Barbara, California, channel requested Coast Guard assistance.

The vessel’s captain reported it had been drifting without food, fuel, or water for two days and that there were not enough life jackets for everyone aboard.

A large-scale rescue response was launched by air and sea, far offshore in rough conditions at night, but within five hours the ship was located and boarded.

When the 37 people aboard the distressed boat were given life vests and safely transferred to the US Coast Guard Cutter Sockeye, they were found to be migrants suspected of attempting to enter the US illegally, which led to the involvement of US Customs & Border Protection and the US Border Patrol.

The following units of the Department of Homeland Security participated in the rescue effort as well as the law-enforcement mission that followed:

• Coast Guard Cutter Halibut (WPB 87340)

• Coast Guard Cutter Sockeye (WPB 87337)

• Coast Guard Station Channel Islands

• Coast Guard Station Los Angeles-Long Beach

• Coast Guard Sector Los Angeles-Long Beach

• Coast Guard Air Station Barbers Point

• U.S. Customs and Border Protection Air and Marine Interdiction Agents

• U.S. Border Patrol

The migrants were brought ashore at Coast Guard Base Los Angeles-Long Beach, where they were transferred to U.S. Border Patrol personnel.

On Thursday, August 27, 2026, a Coast Guard Patrol Plane off Puerto Rico spotted an overloaded 22-foot boat in Mona Passage engaged in a human-smuggling run toward the US territory and maintained a watch over it, along with US Customs & Border Protection aircraft, until the Coast Guard Cutter Joseph Tezanos intercepted it at sea.

The cutter crew found 19 citizens of the Dominican Republic aboard the vessel. The migrants were returned to the Dominican Republic on Monday, August 31, 2026.

On Wednesday, August 12, 2026, the crew of Coast Guard Cutter Terrell Horn intercepted a suspicious small boat 7 miles west of San Diego at 2:15 in the morning. The cutter launched a small boat crew, which boarded the “panga” style vessel and discovered it was involved in a human smuggling run with nine migrants aboard. They took the migrants into custody and turned them over to the US Border Patrol.

Finally, on Saturday, August 1, 2026, the crew of a Coast Guard Station San Diego 45-foot Response Boat conducting a boating safety patrol in Mission Bay interrupted another human smuggling attempt when it boarded a 22-foot Seaswirl vessel to conduct a routine inspection and discovered nine undocumented migrants aboard.

The vessel was escorted to a lifeguard dock in Mission Bay. Those aboard were transferred to the custody of Imperial Beach Border Patrol Station agents for further processing.

Are you surprised that the cartels are attempting to smuggle groups of migrants across into the US by sea?

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Brian José Morales García had only been installing air conditioners in the Texas heat for a few months when the construction crew he was with got pulled over near Fredericksburg by a Texas Department of Public Safety officer.

The routine traffic stop resulted in the 25-year-old’s removal from the country despite his status as a U.S. citizen. The episode highlights what many Hispanic Texans, immigrant rights advocates and immigration lawyers have warned about for years: When local police who are untrained in the nuances of immigration law join forces with the feds, it can lead to U.S. citizens being hassled, detained and even deported.

The federal government reached an agreement with Morales’ lawyers to let him back into the country Sunday, as a civil rights lawsuit challenging his detention continues to wend through the courts.

Morales is back home in Austin and said he is eager to return to work to support his relatives in the U.S. and Mexico. Still, he remains rattled by the experience after spending four months in Mexico professing his innocence.

“Am I supposed to just accept that if I get pulled over again, it’ll be the same thing?” Morales said in an interview with The Texas Tribune. “Will it be the same treatment?”

To be sure, the apprehension, detention and removal of U.S. citizens by immigration authorities is rare. But immigration legal scholars and political observers say incidents like Morales’ are all but certain to become more common as local police increasingly work with ICE.

Law enforcement in Texas is already playing an unprecedented role in President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign. Hundreds of agencies, from sheriff’s offices in remote border counties to local police in East Texas, have inked agreements to help U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement seek, detain and deport undocumented immigrants.

Through this surge in partnerships, which is also playing out across the country, local authorities are holding undocumented people accused of crimes at county lockups and asking others about their legal status during regular policing duties.

Texas GOP leaders spent years pursuing this system, cementing it further last year with a new law that requires nearly every sheriff in the state to partner up with the feds by Dec. 1. As with past efforts to promote local cooperation, Republican officials dismissed concerns that such work would result in mistakes like Morales’ deportation.

“There are obviously inherent biases of individuals,” state Sen. Charles Schwertner, a Georgetown Republican who carried that bill, said in response to a Democratic lawmaker’s contention that it would give rise to racial profiling. “That said, there are ways to properly train.”

Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, Morales’ lawyer, said police across the state are targeting people on the basis of their race or ethnicity as they seek to aid ICE, “and this is absolutely what happened in the case of Brian.”

“If we live in a country where law enforcement can racially profile someone because of the color of their skin, or their accent, or the language that they speak, and detain and deport them, then that is a country that I don’t recognize,” she said.

Civil rights advocates and immigration attorneys have long argued that local police are prone to this sort of profiling, and wrongfully detaining people, when empowered to enforce immigration laws. That’s because they don’t have nearly as much training and experience as federal immigration officers, who spend more time grasping the complex and ever-changing web of policies that make up U.S. immigration law.

The Trump administration has reduced training to streamline the onboarding process for new local law enforcement partners.

“I think what we can expect is to see more and more of these errors,” said Nayna Gupta, policy director at the American Immigration Council, a Washington, D.C., group that advocates for immigrants. “This story of the U.S. citizen man in Texas is headline grabbing, given how egregious the injustice was — from our perspective, it was by no means an exception.”

The Department of Homeland Security, which has said in previous statements its agents did not arrest a citizen and had instead determined Morales was “illegally in the U.S.,” did not respond to requests for comment Sunday and Monday, after a spokesperson initially said the agency was working on a statement.

Spokespersons for the Department of Justice, Gov. Greg Abbott and Texas DPS also did not respond to requests for comment.

The governor dramatically escalated Texas’ immigration enforcement role during the Biden administration, dispatching DPS officers and Texas National Guard troops to patrol the border under a state crackdown called Operation Lone Star.

Last year, days into Trump’s second term, Abbott ordered DPS officers to coordinate with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to find undocumented immigrants. He said state troopers would focus on people with warrants — without specifying which type — and deport them from the country.

DPS Director Freeman Martin later said his agency was “going after the migrants that pose the largest threat to the communities.”

Lincoln-Goldfinch said her client’s arrest is “an outcome of overzealous immigration enforcement.”

“We don’t know what tipped the scales,” she said. “Our hope is that now that he’s here and that DOJ has invited him to come back, that will provide sufficient evidence for the general public to believe that this actually is the case of a native born U.S. citizen being detained and deported.”

Trump revives and expands ICE task force model

Morales has said repeatedly he was born in Denver but grew up in Mexico. After authorities stopped the vehicle he was in, he said that he offered to show them his Social Security card and birth certificate, which were at his home in Austin. Officers from various agencies denied the offer, he said.

Morales, who doesn’t speak English and has dual citizenship in Mexico, was held for five days until he signed paperwork to be deported, fearing that he would be detained for months.

He said he decided to return to the U.S. last year to work and also get to know the country he was born in. He previously told the Tribune that U.S. Customs and Border Protection let him enter the country in El Paso when he showed them his birth certificate.

Before installing air conditioning, he worked as a painter, he said. In his downtime in Austin, he likes swinging by local soccer fields and catching professional matches on TV, from Major League Soccer to the top professional league in Mexico, Liga MX, where he roots for C.D. Guadalajara — known as Las Chivas.

In the interview with the Tribune on Monday, Morales said he spent his recent stint in Mexico trying to make the most of time with relatives he does not see often. They tried to keep him in high spirits, but Morales said he was restless to return to the country.

Morales’ aspirations to support his family are shared by many immigrants, who contribute millions of dollars to Texas’ economy through taxes, paying rent and buying goods and services. Roughly 11% of the nation’s undocumented immigrants live in Texas — an estimated 1.7 million people.

Since Trump returned to office, however, those dreams have increasingly collided with local police and their heightened role in trying to apprehend undocumented immigrants.

Less than two years later, the latest ICE statistics show that 432 law enforcement agencies in Texas have signed a total of 514 agreements with ICE for any of its three types of local partnerships. Two of these are confined to jails, allowing the sheriffs that typically run the lockups to hold people longer until federal officials can take custody of them. Officers can also serve ICE warrants to arrest people accused of violating immigration law.

Well over half the agreements in Texas — 314 of the 514 — are for a controversial program called the task force model, which grants local police limited authority to question people about their immigration status during routine police work, like traffic stops.

The Trump administration revived the task force model, which had been dormant since 2012 following a racial profiling scandal in Arizona led by a sheriff, who directed his deputies to target Latinos. After the Justice Department found that participating agencies in Arizona and North Carolina had conducted discriminatory policing while enforcing immigration laws, the Obama administration ended the task force program.

Recently published ICE data shows the administration is leaning more on states like Texas for its ambitious deportation goals.

An analysis published by the New York Times last week found that ICE is making more than 380 arrests a day in Texas. About 14% of arrests nationwide are through 287(g) agreements, up from about 3% in January 2025. Texas has tallied almost 10,000 detentions through the program.

The agencies that have signed up for the program in Texas include DPS and the Gillespie County Sheriff’s Office, whose deputies also responded to the traffic stop that led to Morales’ deportation.

Feds reimburse local law enforcement for helping ICE

U.S. citizens have been caught up in the blitz of immigration enforcement. A ProPublica investigation found that more than 170 Americans had been detained during immigration sweeps.

The ubiquity of officers enlisted to enforce immigration law has stoked fear. U.S. citizens — unlike immigrants, legal or not — are not legally required to carry their American passports. But because of the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown, and the heightened likelihood of a busted taillight leading to an immigration check, American citizens of color carry documentation out of fear of being racially profiled.

The rapid expansion of the 287(g) program is thanks to a mix of aggressive encouragement from the Trump administration and political pressure from state leaders who are allied with the president, said Gupta, of the American Immigration Council. She noted that the White House has also sweetened the deal by reimbursing state and local police who participate.

“For smaller local police departments or really any local police departments, many of which are underfunded and under-resourced, that can be a somewhat appealing incentive,” she said. “Those dynamics have absolutely been in play in states around the country.”

And then there are states like Texas that require such participation. The law passed last year by the Legislature, which compels most sheriffs in the state to enter at least one 287(g) agreement with ICE, was the latest move to expand the state’s role enforcing immigration law — long the sole responsibility of the federal government.

A 2023 state law created a state crime for crossing the border illegally into Texas. It went into effect this spring after a yearslong legal challenge.

Meanwhile, a 2017 law prohibits local officials from creating any policies that stop police officers from asking people about their legal status. State lawmakers passed it during Trump’s first term, when Democratic-led cities opposed his immigration policies.

As the collaboration between Texas police and ICE has increased, DPS has sought to shield certain records from reaching the public eye.

The state agency released basic information about the incident, such as its exact location and a case synopsis submitted by an officer, and argued that the rest could be withheld under state law that allows police and prosecutors to keep documents under wraps if their release would interfere with the investigation of a crime.

It is not clear what crime is being investigated. The initial traffic stop was for a window tint check. Still, the attorney general’s office ruled in July that DPS may withhold the information.

Earlier this year, The Florida Trib reported, ICE told police in Florida and Texas that they needed federal permission to release any information “obtained or developed” under a 287(g) agreement, arguing the records were “under the control of ICE.”

(Disclosure: The New York Times has been a major financial supporter of The Texas Tribune. The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in our journalism. Find a complete list of them and more information about our financial and disclosure policies here.)

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After a federal court announced last week that work on border security construction in Big Bend National Park would be put on hold through Sept. 15, 2026, Texas State Senator Roland Gutierrez announced on Instagram on Monday, August 31, 2026, that the delay has been pushed back to September 30, 2026.

Gutierrez is representing river adventure company Far Flung Outfitters as well as the Lipan-Apache Tribe in opposing construction of border barriers and “patrol roads” in the national park.

On Monday, Gutierrez said the court received a letter from the federal government stating there would be no “moving of earth or dirt of any kind” until Sept. 30, extending the court-imposed pause.

“We don’t need a wall where one already exists. We don’t need a wall where there are virtually no border crossings to speak of in any real way. We don’t need an expenditure of $1.7 billion just to fill the coffers of some contractor.” -Texas State Senator Roland Guttierez

Meanwhile, U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone postponed a hearing scheduled for Thursday in El Paso on a request for a preliminary injunction to stop construction of border infrastructure in the park and across the region.

The request was brought by the Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Ruidosa Church and a Big Bend area landowner, the same plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging the construction. That lawsuit challenging the unconstitutional waiver of dozens of laws to fast-track border barrier construction in the region still proceeds.

Both sides in the case have been ordered by the court to file additional paperwork by September 7, 2026, and “upon review of the joint notice, the Court will reset this matter for an evidentiary hearing, if appropriate.”

Do you support construction of “Border Barriers” and “Patrol Roads” in the Big Bend area of West Texas?

Share your opinion in a comment to this story!

Abrazos,

Jack Beavers

Related Coverage:

• FLASH UPDATE: Big Bend Border Barrier Build Pause Extended

• Big Bend Border Barrier Build Still Paused After Much Damage Done

• Texas Parks Commission inundated with Border Wall concerns during meeting

• Texas Republicans Cornered by Big Bend Barrier Backlash

• CBP boss meets Texans over Big Bend Border Barrier Build

• CBP Head Tours West Texas Amidst Border Barrier Battle

A 25-year-old man from Central Texas who was deported to Mexico despite insisting he was an American citizen returned to the country Sunday after the federal government reached an agreement with his lawyers in light of new evidence they provided about his citizenship, his attorneys said.

The federal government deported Brian José Morales García in April following a police stop near Fredericksburg. In a previous interview with The Texas Tribune, he said that he was born in Denver, grew up in Mexico and had been living and working in Texas. Officers who stopped the vehicle he was riding in did not believe him and called U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Morales said he repeatedly told authorities that he was born in the United States and that he had copies of his birth certificate and Social Security number at his home in Austin that he could share with them. He was deported, anyway. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security disputed his account and accused Morales of having entered the country illegally.

According to Morales’s lawyers, that changed as they provided more documents as part of a lawsuit challenging his removal. His legal team submitted additional hospital records, affidavits from witnesses and his certified birth record from Colorado. The U.S. Department of Justice allowed Morales to enter the country while a lawsuit regarding his detention and deportation proceeds, his lawyers said. His lawyer, Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, picked him up in Laredo, she said.

DHS and DOJ spokespersons did not immediately respond to a request for comment Sunday.

“Brian’s case raises an alarming pattern of behavior on the part of the federal government, demonstrating that they’re willing to racially profile, detain and deport U.S. citizens, “ Lincoln-Goldfinch said. “In order to prove citizenship, someone who is born in this country has to provide more than just civil documentation about who they are, and the federal government being permitted to require this level of evidence for someone to simply reside in the U.S. is extremely concerning and unacceptable.”

Morales and his lawyer had previously provided the Tribune copies of his Social Security card and birth certificate, which shows he was born in Denver. He has dual citizenship in Mexico.

The Tribune also reviewed Morales’ Mexican identification, which had a different spelling of his first name and a different date of birth. A clerk in Mexico had used common Spanish spelling for his first name — Bryan — and changed the birth date without double-checking his American paperwork, his mother previously said.

It is rare for American citizens to be wrongly deported, but the practice still occurs. A congressional government watchdog found that immigration agents “arrested 674, detained 121, and removed 70 potential U.S. citizens” between 2015 and 2020, according to a July 2021 report.

An investigation from ProPublica found more than 170 U.S. citizens were detained by immigration agents in the first nine months of President Trump’s second administration. But the report didn’t identify anyone who was deported.

Morales’s civil rights lawsuit in federal court remains pending.

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Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare said Friday that federal officials have not provided his office any information about the fatal shooting last month of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo by immigration officers in Houston, so he plans to take the evidence his office has collected so far to a grand jury in the “next few weeks,” in part to compel the release of more details.

Teare said his office also may file a federal lawsuit to force the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, to provide more information.

“We have now kind of put together as much physical evidence as we think we’re going to get and so the next step is to begin to get witnesses into the grand jury so that you get kind of a fuller picture of what eyewitnesses saw,” Teare said.

Although his office now knows the names of the four ICE agents who were pursuing the white van driven by Salgado Araujo early on July 7, Teare declined to identify them, citing grand jury proceedings that are typically secret until suspects have been indicted. Grand juries also have the power to subpoena agencies, including in the federal government, and conduct separate investigations. Teare said the Texas Department of Public Safety, which oversees the Texas Rangers and is conducting its own probe of the shooting, has received some information from DHS that it is sharing with his office to potentially take to the grand jury.

“A lot of our timing is going to be dependent on outside forces, on the cooperation we continue to get from the Texas Rangers, the cooperation we hope to get from DHS’s Office of Inspector General, the cooperation that we’re going to need from other individuals involved and so I really can’t put a true timetable on it,” he said, adding that the grand jury proceedings could ultimately result in a criminal indictment.

Teare, a veteran prosecutor, told the Tribune in the 25-minute interview that crucial aspects of ICE’s pursuit of Salgado’s van and his investigation of the shooting have contrasted sharply with other officer-involved shootings that the district attorney’s office has worked on in the past — even when they involved federal agencies.

The initial tip that set the fatal encounter into motion appeared to be incorrect. ICE agents said they were originally looking for at least one Guatemalan man with a prior deportation order who was also driving a white van in the same heavily Hispanic Houston neighborhood. Salgado and his three passengers — all construction workers on their way to a job that morning — were from Mexico and had no criminal record, their attorneys and families said.

In a new federal filing, ICE officers alleged that DPS provided the initial information about the targeted van.

ICE “had previously received Intel from DPS troopers” of two people in a white van with Texas plates and “sent identification for two subjects,” according to the document, which has since been sealed and is partially redacted. It was filed this week in federal court as part of a petition by attorneys to release one of the passengers from immigration detention.

According to that document, written by ICE officers in their official account of the shooting, neither of the people identified by DPS were the registered owners of the vehicle, so ICE officers conducted their own surveillance.

Weeks prior to the shooting, they had tried to stop the white van, but when its driver fled, officers did not pursue, according to the document. Then, on July 7, ICE officers “observed a white van matching the description” in the same area and pursued it.

A DPS spokesperson, Ericka Miller, wrote in an email that the information ICE agents included in their report was incorrect and that the state police did not provide any information to immigration officers “related to this incident.”

“DPS did not provide any information of any sort to ICE related to the location where the (officer-involved shooting) occurred, any vehicles, other individuals or Mr. Lorenzo Salgado Araujo,” she wrote.

Spokespeople for DHS and ICE did not immediately respond to questions about the statements by Teare or DPS. They largely repeated what they’ve said publicly in the past, including that ICE agents were conducting a “targeted enforcement operation” in the area when Salgado Araujo “”attempted to evade arrest.”

“From information we are receiving, he rammed an ICE law enforcement vehicle, refused to follow multiple verbal commands, and weaponized his vehicle in an attempt to run over an ICE law enforcement officer resulting in our officer firing his weapon in self-defense,” an unnamed ICE spokesperson wrote in an email.

Those claims have been refuted by the three passengers in Salgado Araujo’s vehicle, two of whom have been released from detention by federal judges who blocked the government from immediately deporting them.

Salgado Araujo’s fatal shooting is among at least three by DHS agents in Texas since Trump returned to office and adds to a growing tally nationwide, including at least two deaths of U.S. citizens in Minnesota. In most of those cases, including all the Texas incidents, DHS agents were not wearing body cameras.

The Minnesota shootings spurred nationwide protests about the harsh tactics of immigration agents there. Yet eight months later, state prosecutors have yet to indict any ICE agents in the shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti and only turned over key evidence to local prosecutors last month, illustrating the difficulty states can encounter when trying to prosecute federal officers.

In Houston, Salgado Araujo’s brother, who was in the front passenger seat and had the most complete view of the shooting, remains in custody. His attorney said this week that the Trump administration has indicated it is likely to finally approve his application for a temporary legal status because he is the witness to a potential crime. His sealed application to be released from custody has “seen movement” this week, attorney Ruby Powers said, but is pending a final decision.

The document released this week also said ICE officers used their emergency lights and sirens when trying to stop Salgado Araujo’s van, although that is not visible in footage of some parts of the pursuit that the Tribune reviewed. None of the ICE officers were wearing body cameras and the agency has maintained that dash cam footage from the two vehicles is not “available.”

Nothing about the ensuing pursuit, fatal shooting, crime scene and investigation has appeared to follow well-established procedures, Teare said.

The district attorney’s office, for example, has a long-standing policy that mandates its investigators go to every fatal officer-involved shooting in Harris County. In this case, Teare said his investigators were not given access to the scene until a day later, making its independent investigation much more difficult.

By contrast, he said that the FBI immediately notified his office about the 2018 fatal shooting of a hostage and encouraged it to investigate the death, which eventually resulted in a grand jury declining to indict the federal agent. A federal judge last year found the agent was negligent when he fired the shots, ordering the government to pay about $2 million in damages to Ulises Valladares’ family.

The DA’s office also has not been provided what is called a field operations worksheet, detailing the ICE officers’ justification for stopping Salgado Araujo’s van, as well as ICE’s use of force and pursuit policy.

“This is so unique, having dealt with hundreds of agency officer-involved shootings in my career, to not have this stuff,” Teare said. “I mean, we’re almost through August. This happened July 7, so to not have this is just so out of the norm.”

ICE officers were in unmarked black SUVs, and they did not use common emergency lights and sirens as they attempted to stop Salgado Araujo before boxing him in on a narrow residential street partially under construction, Teare said.

Most major state and local law enforcement agencies restrict officers in unmarked vehicles from making traffic stops, according to more than a dozen law enforcement experts who reviewed the available footage. Seth Stoughton, a University of South Carolina professor who focuses on use of force and is a former police officer, said the footage in this case “looks more like a carjacking attempt than it does a police stop.”

Teare echoed those concerns.

“One of the pursuing vehicles couldn’t even make the turn because they were so close,” he said. “It was a pursuit, and you’ve seen the footage. Their emergency equipment was not activated at that time at all.”

Both the chase and the fatal shots, which the vehicle’s passengers said came from an ICE agent on foot who fired through the right window, “wasn’t done the way that any law enforcement agency that I’ve ever worked with would teach their officers to behave,” Teare added.

“The traffic stop was not initiated correctly. The positioning of people is not the way that it’s taught, and so, no, nothing about that was done the way that any law enforcement agency that I’ve worked with would teach their people.”

(This article is from The Texas Tribune - a non-profit news organization - and is republished by US Border News with permission. If you would like to financially support The Texas Tribune, you may do so HERE).

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Bloomberg Law and numerous other news organizations are reporting that “pre-construction” work in preparation for building border barriers and other border security infrastructure in Big Bend National Park “has been halted through Sept. 15, 2026, and possibly longer, a federal judge said from the bench Friday.”

US Border News has been covering the controversy for many months over the construction of “Border Walls,” “Border Barriers,” and other border security infrastructure in extremely remote sections of the Big Bend, as well as Far Southwest and Far West Texas where very few illegal crossings occur because of the harsh desert conditions, lack of roads (on both sides of the border) and forbidding desert landscape (including steep cliffs) along the Rio Grande there.

If you would like to get caught up on these issues, here are links to our reports:

• Big Bend Border Barrier Build Paused After Damage Done

Natalie Newman documents destruction through photos

• Texas Republicans Cornered by Big Bend Barrier Backlash

And tread carefully around Trump

• Texas Parks Commission inundated with border wall concerns during meeting

Hundreds oppose federal border barriers

• CBP Head Tours West Texas Amidst Border Barrier Battle

Will it make a difference?

• CBP boss meets Texans over Big Bend Border Barrier Build

Construction temporarily halted

• Big Bend Border Barrier Build Begins

Despite widespread opposition

• Texas GOP Official Orders Halt to building part of the “Big Bend Border Wall”

Land Commissioner says “cease & desist”

• Noem’s Ouster Reignites Texas Border Wall Battle

Will the DHS listen now?

What do you think about the controversy over building Border Walls and other Border Barriers along this section of the Texas-Mexico Border?

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The immigration officer at the center of a Minnesota-Texas legal fight was released from a South Texas jail Thursday, a day after a federal judge rejected Minnesota’s attempt to keep him jailed as the state fights to extradite the man to face criminal charges related to a January shooting.

Christian Castro walked out of the Carrizalez-Rucker Cameron Detention Center early Thursday morning, according to The Associated Press.

He faces four counts of assault after he allegedly fired through a closed door in Minneapolis on Jan. 14 and struck a Venezuelan man in the leg. He is also accused of lying about events leading to the shooting.

In a lawsuit filed last week, Minnesota officials sought to compel Gov. Greg Abbott to agree to extradite Castro.

The lawsuit also asked U.S. District Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr., appointed by President Donald Trump, to order Castro held in a Cameron County jail beyond Thursday while they await Abbott’s decision on the extradition request.

People awaiting extradition in Texas cannot be held longer than 90 days. Castro, who was arrested in Cameron County on May 29, will reach that deadline Thursday. Minnesota officials expressed concern that if released, the officer would flee and avoid prosecution.

In the Wednesday order, Rodriguez ruled that Abbott has not denied extradition so Minnesota’s case is not yet “ripe for adjudication.”

And although the judge acknowledged that Abbott has considered the extradition request “for an atypically long duration,” he found that Minnesota has not identified any federal law requiring the Texas governor to decide whether to sign the extradition paperwork within a certain time period.

The judge also concluded that the threat of flight was not enough to justify holding Castro beyond the legal limit.

“The Court agrees that Castro’s flight to Mexico would impose a hardship on Minnesota’s prosecutorial efforts,” he wrote. “But that possible outcome does not alter the analysis.”

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said he “strongly disagrees” with the ruling, adding that Abbott is turning Texas into a “sanctuary state for violent criminals.”

After Castro’s release, Ellison vowed to continue Minnesota’s lawsuit to force the governor “to do his legal and constitutional duty.”

“I will never stop pursuing Castro wherever he may be to make him face justice in Minnesota,” he said in a statement.

Abbott’s spokesperson, Andrew Mahaleris, said the court was correct in rejecting Minnesota’s “absurd claim.”

“The Constitution requires deliberate consideration of extradition requests and tasks Governor Abbott to ‘decide, upon such evidence as he may deem satisfactory’ whether ‘the person demanded is a fugitive,’” he said in a statement. “Today’s order rebuffs Minnesota’s efforts to conscript federal courts into commandeering the authority of Governor Abbott’s office.”

Earlier this week, Abbott told the court that he has not signed the rendition warrant because of “serious doubts” that Castro qualifies as a fugitive, citing media reports that said the ICE officer didn’t flee Minnesota and had instead returned to Texas due to job obligations.

The governor said he ordered Texas Secretary of State Robert Howden — his former senior adviser — to investigate this issue on July 31, but that inquiry remains pending. During a hearing Tuesday in Rodriguez’s Brownsville courtroom, attorneys for Texas argued that the state was working diligently to make that determination.

Howden’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about his investigation’s timeline.

Meanwhile, attorneys for Minnesota argued Tuesday that how Castro ended up in Texas was irrelevant and that the investigation into whether he is a fugitive has no basis in law.

They also said Abbott has a duty to make Castro available for extradition under the Extradition Clause of the Constitution, which they said is meant to preclude any state from becoming a sanctuary for fugitives of another state.

In his Wednesday order, the judge concluded that federal extradition law doesn’t give him the authority to set a time limit for Texas officials to conduct their investigation. He also found that there is “no direct evidence” that Abbott pushed for an investigation to delay the extradition or that Howden’s inquiry would go on for a long time.

“The threat of an indefinite consideration of Minnesota’s extradition request does not currently exist,” Rodriguez wrote.

(The Texas Tribune’s reporting in the Rio Grande Valley is supported in part by the Methodist Healthcare Ministries of South Texas, Inc.)

Should ICE Agent Christian Castro be extradited to Minnesota to face criminal charges there?

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(Major hat tip to Marfa Public Radio General Manager Travis Bubenik for calling attention via x.com to these latest filings in the ongoing battle over this project).

“All activity within the Park is paused until August 31, 2026, at minimum, and the work that occurred prior to the pause was limited to pre-construction activities such as clearing vegetation to create passable routes for geotechnical surveys and to access the project alignment.” -US Department of Homeland Security (August 24, 2026)

However, a considerable amount of damage in formerly pristine areas of the national park has already been done by these “pre-construction activities,” as Big Bend nature photographer Natalie Newman is documenting on her Facebook and Instagram pages.

She has recorded the damage done by heavy earth-moving equipment as contractors tore through the park beginning earlier this month. And, like many who live in (or just love) the beauty of the Big Bend, witnessing the destruction that has occurred there (and may resume there) has at times brought her to tears.

She has documented rows of heavy machinery tearing through the sensitive landscape of the Big Bend National Park alongside the Rio Grande. This construction activity occurred where steep cliffs loom large on the Mexican side of the river. Opponents of the project contend this natural “border wall” already prevents illegal crossings into the park, making the entire project unnecessary.

Natalie Newman’s photos show the extent of the damage federal contractors have done to fragile and formerly untouched areas within the national park. They have stripped vegetation down to the bare sand of the desert floor in large swathes along the Rio Grande.

As she has pointed out in one of her videos, this damage is occurring in a riparian corridor where birds seek shelter along the Rio Grande - and is occurring during nesting season.

Large trees have thoughtlessly been brought to the ground in some sections. The contractors appeared intent on plowing a straight line instead of steering around them.

Again, this is what the government calls “pre-construction” work.

The damage to the park Natalie Newman documented through aerial photos is even more alarming.

Near the Big Bend National Park’s Solis Takeout and the popular Solis Primitive Campground, the landscape has been deeply scarred. The damage there is likely irreversible.

She has also documented what many locals believe is evidence of unnecessary damage being done by construction workers plowing swathes parallel to existing roads in the park. Roads Border Patrol Agents use now (as they have for years) to monitor the park.

And, in case you're wondering, it’s unlikely all of these paths being plowed through the park are for the vehicle barriers as shown in the photo below (as opposed to a full-blown wall) the government plans to install there.

For one thing, they’ve plowed a path up the rugged Mariscal Mountain, where there is no reason to build a vehicle barrier, as documented by the Center for Biological Diversity’s Laiken Jordahl (who, like Natalie Newman, is posting regular construction/destruction updates to his Facebook page).

For another, the Big Bend National Park vehicle barriers are proposed in six relatively small segments scattered throughout the park, and it’s difficult to connect where the Trump Administration wants to place them via the map below and where their contractors plowed up a mountain as pictured above, where it is unlikely anyone in a vehicle would attempt to cross.

Finally, in its own court filings, the Department of Homeland Security says its contractors created all this irreversible destruction while clearing “vegetation to create passable routes for geotechnical surveys and to access the project,” not to build barriers or even patrol roads in the park.

In other words, the worst is yet to come.

But for now, with considerable damage already done, construction remains paused, with another hearing on opposition to the project scheduled for Friday in federal court.

What are your thoughts about the Border Barrier construction in Big Bend National Park?

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Texas is set to receive $7.5 billion from a federal fund to reimburse states for border costs incurred when Joe Biden was president, Sen. John Cornyn told The Texas Tribune in an interview, shedding light for the first time on the Lone Star State’s haul more than a year after Congress authorized the funding.

Cornyn, a Texas Republican who was defeated in his primary this year, said Gov. Greg Abbott and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin had negotiated the $7.5 billion amount. That accounts for three-quarters of the $10 billion in grant funding that is up for grabs from Mullin’s agency.

But getting that money into the hands of states has been slow going. The state border reimbursement fund was created in July 2025 in the One, Big Beautiful Bill Act, the tax-and-spending megabill supported by nearly all Republicans and uniformly opposed by Democrats. The bill authorized $13.5 billion in grant funding to state governments, a massive priority for Texas’ Republican delegation in Congress and for Cornyn, who pushed for its inclusion during negotiations over the legislation.

Texas, which spent over $11 billion on border security through Abbott’s Operation Lone Star initiative during the Biden era, has long been expected to receive the lion’s share of the funding.

Cornyn said Abbott and Mullin worked out the deal “maybe a month ago,” but added, “we haven’t seen any real movement on that since that time.”

“It’s something that’s passed into law over a year ago,” Cornyn said. “It’s a little maddening to feel like you’re pulling teeth, but that’s sort of what it feels like.”

DHS opened applications for $10 billion worth of grant funding in early June, 11 months after the bill’s passage. The application deadline was originally in early July, but the department extended it to mid-September. Abbott announced in late June that Texas had submitted its application and said he would work to swiftly secure reimbursement.

In a statement for this story, Abbott spokesperson Andrew Mahaleris said the governor would continue to pursue reimbursement. He did not address Abbott’s conversations with Mullin or the details relayed by Cornyn.

“Texas spent billions in Texas taxpayer money to secure the border under Operation Lone Star after the Biden Administration refused to enforce federal immigration law,” Mahaleris said. “Governor Abbott will continue working with Secretary Mullin and the Trump Administration to ensure Texas is reimbursed for the costs it incurred on behalf of the nation.”

A second pot of border reimbursement money — worth $3.5 billion — will be doled out by the Department of Justice. That grant program, which is open to county and city governments as well, took applications in June and July.

The timeline, Cornyn said, has been “a little frustrating.”

“Obviously, we’re going to try to maximize what the state of Texas can get,” Cornyn said. “The administration has been supportive the whole time. But I think some people are beginning to wonder — why is it taking so long to get the money actually done? And is this going to create a political problem for the administration in Texas?

“Here we are two months before the midterm elections,” Cornyn continued. “I hope that’s not the case, but that’s kind of where we are right now.”

The clock is also ticking for state lawmakers who will return to the Texas Capitol in January for their 140-day legislative session, during which they will pass the state’s budget for the next two years. The spending plan hinges on the Texas comptroller’s estimate — also typically delivered in January — of how much revenue the state will have at its disposal for the upcoming budget cycle. If Texas’ federal reimbursement is still up in the air by then, it could have ramifications for budget writers, who most recently authored a $338 billion spending plan, aided by a projected $24 billion surplus.

Shortly after President Donald Trump was inaugurated in 2025, Abbott sent a letter to congressional leadership requesting reimbursement for the cost of Operation Lone Star. The governor launched the state border security initiative in March 2021 and ultimately deployed thousands of National Guard and state trooper personnel to the border. In his letter, Abbott included a full cost breakdown for the manpower, along with the border wall and buoy infrastructure propped up by Texas and the costs of prosecuting detained migrants’ cases.

“This success came at a cost, which fell squarely on the shoulders of Texas taxpayers but should have been the federal government’s responsibility,” Abbott wrote.

From there, Cornyn and the state’s Republican delegation in the U.S. House advocated for reimbursement, including in a legislative strategy session with Abbott at the U.S. Capitol. Cornyn and other Texas Republicans spearheaded legislation to repay Texas and publicly urged federal agencies to prioritize Texas in disbursing the funds after the money was approved.

Cornyn said the latest information about the fund came from Abbott, who relayed details from his talks with Mullin. When asked why it was taking so long to dole out the money, Cornyn said his impression was that “the president’s got to make this happen.”

“Like everything else to the Trump White House, he’s the one who will say yea or nay,” Cornyn said. “And I presume that hasn’t happened yet.”

Spokespersons for DHS and Abbott did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Cornyn, who has represented Texas in the upper chamber since 2002, lost a primary runoff to Attorney General Ken Paxton in May, making this the final year of his Senate career. Since his loss, he’s shown a willingness to use his vote as leverage on issues he cares about, including protecting a federal program to fight AIDS globally and formally eliminating a controversial DOJ settlement fund that could have been used to pay out defendants charged in relation to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

The senior senator said he still has the power of his vote, and that he is willing to use it to “make sure that Texas gets what it deserves.”

When asked if he had spoken to Trump about the border reimbursement money, Cornyn said he was relying on Abbott to have those conversations. Trump endorsed Paxton in May after over a year of both campaigns — and their allies — jockeying for his endorsement.

“I don’t think I’m the best messenger at this point in my relationship with the president,” Cornyn said.

Should the federal government repay Texas for the billions it spent securing its border with Mexico during the Biden Administration?

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For over a generation, Texas Republicans have owned the politics of the southern border. Now the Trump administration’s latest border project has them cornered, stuck between constituents outraged over federal plans to carve roads and barriers through Big Bend and a president none of them want to cross.

Even Ken Paxton is choosing his words carefully. The Republican Senate nominee, a reliable ally of President Donald Trump, said in a statement that the administration’s plan “is not smart border security,” representing a rare break from the White House.

As bipartisan outrage has exploded in West Texas, numerous top Republicans have hedged on the matter, welcoming this week’s construction pause without entirely breaking from the Trump administration. U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, echoing other GOP leaders, said he was glad federal officials were taking a beat “to hear the concerns of local landowners and law enforcement.” And he acknowledged that “the tools needed to secure the border in Big Bend are likewise different than those needed in a dense urban environment,” without explicitly condemning the project.

“It is a huge liability,” said former Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson, a Republican who has been outspoken about the political vulnerability presented by construction in the beloved region. “This issue has become big, really big, and it’s going to become bigger.”

Republicans are already taking a battery of attacks from Democrats, who are bullish on claiming a statewide victory in November’s midterm elections, which would be their first since 1994, and nabbing congressional districts that can upend power dynamics in Congress.

“To be honest with you, we’re in a general election coming up that’s going to be pretty tough,” state Rep. Wes Virdell, one of three GOP state lawmakers to sign a letter asking the governor to step in, said during an interview last week with KXAN News. “If people are watching Republicans not stand up for them down in South Texas, I think we’re going to lose the vote down there.”

The race for U.S. Senate is shaping up to be the greatest threat for Republicans, whose nominee, Paxton, will face Democratic state Rep. James Talarico of Austin. Polls place the two in a tight race, and Talarico, like many other Democrats, has spent weeks blasting the Trump administration’s plans.

After initially declining to say where he stands, Paxton issued a fresh statement that pushed back on Big Bend construction in starker terms.

“Texans know this stretch of our border better than anyone in Washington. Destroying one of our state’s greatest natural treasures with unnecessary roads and barriers is not smart border security,” the attorney general said. “We must always put Texans first. That means effective enforcement that protects our communities and supports our law enforcement while respecting the unique character of places like Big Bend and leaving our natural resources undisturbed for future generations.”

Changing plans cause confusion

The source of all the anger are plans from the Trump administration to build an access road and vehicle barriers in Big Bend National Park and 30-foot tall barriers on private land outside the park.

Adding to the furor, the plans — consistently shrouded in secrecy — have changed repeatedly with little communication, as some residents and ranchers learned of developments through a government website or when they received letters from U.S. Customs and Border Protection threatening to take their land via eminent domain.

Republicans and Democrats alike in West Texas say there is no need for a physical barrier in the area the administration is eyeing out there.

Border Patrol agents are divided by geographic regions called sectors. The Big Bend sector is the largest and quietest. It covers 77 Texas counties and 517 miles of the 1,954-mile-long U.S.-Mexico border. That area accounted for just 1.3% of the 237,538 apprehensions recorded across the entire border last fiscal year.

“In other words, we don’t have a problem,” Patterson, the Republican who held statewide office for 12 years until 2015, said. “And we’ve got, so far, a $7.5 billion fix in no-bid contracts.”

Republicans break silence, carefully

In Congress, Texas’ Democrats have been banging the Big Bend drum for months.

The state’s Democratic delegation held a news conference in April to decry U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s wall plans, and signed onto letters to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin opposing the border construction plans in March and again in July. In all cases, the Democrats stood alone.

When U.S. Reps. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, and Veronica Escobar, D-El Paso, attempted to block construction in the park via an amendment to the annual homeland security funding bill, Republicans — including the Texans on the committee — voted in lockstep to block it.

Texas Republicans had opportunities to respond to locals’ concerns, but did not do so — for the most part — until last week, when photos and videos of construction crews arriving in West Texas drew even more attention to the issue.

Now that Republicans are speaking out, their responses have varied from calculated to pointed to misleading. And two of the president’s most loyal allies in the state have remained quiet: Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller. House Speaker Dustin Burrows also has not publicly commented. Spokespersons for all three did not respond to inquiries from the Tribune.

Some Republicans have backed the pause in construction announced this week by CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott while he visits with local officials. Among them are Cruz, who broke his silence in a statement to the Tribune, as well as U.S. Reps. Chip Roy, R-Austin, who thanked Scott for the pause, and August Pfluger, R-San Angelo, whose district includes a large swath of West Texas.

Pfluger wrote on social media that “security and conservation are not mutually exclusive” and encouraged CBP to work with local leaders, communities and ranchers regarding new border infrastructure in the region.

Other Republicans have been more explicit in their opposition.

Last month, Dawn Buckingham, who leads the General Land Office, sent a cease and desist letter to CBP and a federal contractor she said had illegally cleared GLO-owned land in Presidio County. In a statement to the Tribune, she said her agency was working with a contractor to “remediate” the land. She said all construction the GLO had identified has since ended.

Buckingham’s office is now surveying state tracts in the area and “conducting a thorough review of relevant titles and deeds to better determine the location and extent of any potential trespass,” she added.

“Our process concerning wall construction will ensure all factors, including our conservation obligations, are carefully considered,” Buckingham said.

CBP officials have repeatedly said there are no plans for a wall in the park. Some Republicans are talking about one, anyway.

Robert Garza, the GOP candidate for House District 74 — which includes the Big Bend region —told the Tribune he opposed a wall there. He will face state Rep. Eddie Morales Jr., a Democrat who has emerged as a leader of the opposition to the project.

“I’m for strong border security, but not a wall through Big Bend,” Garza said. “Big Bend is one of the most beautiful and rugged stretches of the border and its terrain is already one of the toughest natural barriers we have. Technology and manpower will do more there than a physical barrier.”

Comptroller Don Huffines said in a statement that “building a permanent wall through Big Bend National Park is one of the dumbest ideas I’ve heard in a long time.” He also added that he was pleased with the drastic reduction in illegal border crossings.

Gov. Greg Abbott has similarly focused on a wall and took credit for stopping it. Earlier this week, he told reporters that he had spoken with Mullin, who “committed to me that they will not be building a wall or a fence in Big Bend National Park.”

Most of the comments from Republican state leaders are far from a full-throated rebuke of what those in the region see as federal overreach of precious land that will be disrupted by heavy trucks and equipment to install infrastructure meant to address a problem many believe is nonexistent.

And CBP’s pause — lauded by Republicans — has done little to quell worries that eventual construction of any new roads and surveillance technology will destroy the tranquility and land many cherish in the region.

On Tuesday afternoon, Scott, the CBP head, met with one group of local officials — hailing from West Texas to Del Rio — for an hour and a half.

Democratic state Sen. César Blanco, whose district includes the area, told the Tribune after the meeting that Scott acknowledged a need to hear input from locals before proceeding.

Scott told those at the meeting that federal officials hope to make a decision in the coming weeks regarding the temporary pause of construction, according to Blanco. Local electeds suggested to Scott that the administration consider technology — like infrared surveillance — instead of building physical and permanent structures. Blanco said he felt that Scott made a sincere effort to listen.

But the administration’s plans to build on private land, the senator said, “was somewhat not negotiable.”

Do you support carving patrol roads and building border barriers in the Big Bend area of West Texas?

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The violent Northeast Mexican Cartel (Cártel del Noreste/CDN) which controls “the plaza” (cartel territory & criminal activity) along both sides of the border from Laredo and Tamaulipas, Mexic into Southwest Texas, appears to be probing the Laredo Border Patrol Sector through a series of human smuggling attempts stretching back as far as April that have so far led to the apprehension of more than 130 migrants.

Although the numbers are nowhere as large as those encountered there during the Biden Administration, repeated attempts to move groups of migrants from Mexico into Texas suggest that the CDN may be challenging the increased security the Trump administration has since implemented.

Here’s a rundown of recent cartel human-smuggling groups apprehended in the Laredo Border Patrol Sector, as publicly acknowledged by US Customs & Border Protection (CBP):

On April 30, 2026, the Border Patrol reported discovering 20 migrants from three different countries hiding in the sleeper compartment of the cab of a semi-truck that attempted to pass through an Interstate 35 checkpoint north of Laredo.

On June 9, 2026, Laredo Sector Border Patrol Agents along with Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) Officers raided a suspected cartel “stash house” and found 41 migrants who had been illegally brought across the border and were awaiting cartel transportation deeper into the interior of the United States.

On June 11, 2026, Laredo Sector Border Patrol Agents stopped a suspicious pick-up truck near Cotulla, Texas, and discovered 13 migrants (including children) hidden beneath a bed cover.

On August 14, 2026, when the daily high temperature was recorded over 100 degrees, Laredo Border Patrol Sector Agents discovered 22 migrants hidden in the floor of a flatbed trailer they stopped - likely preventing a “mass casualty” event. Two US citizens towing the trailer in this cartel scheme were taken into federal custody.

Two days later, on August 16, 2026, a US Customs & Border Protection (CBP) drone aircraft patrolling the Laredo Sector spotted a group of 16 migrants moving north from the Rio Grande to reach an agreed-upon “pick-up point” to link up with smugglers to transport them deeper into the state. CBP helicopters and Border Patrol Agents spent several hours searching their remote location before intercepting them before that happened.

Although year-to-year encounters in the Laredo Sector are down 9.7%, these recent group arrests may indicate a new trend emerging in that sector. We don’t have access to short-term granular data to confirm this, however.

Meanwhile, the Mexican Cartels may also be probing the neighboring Rio Grande Valley Border Patrol Sector just south of the Laredo Sector.

On Friday, August 21, 2026, a group of 20 migrants in a trailer being driven north by a semi-truck tractor driver/smuggler was intercepted by US Agents in the Edinburg/Hidalgo County area.

Are you surprised the cartels are still attempting to smuggle large groups of migrants across the border?

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The Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission’s annual public hearing kicked off Wednesday with an unusually festive scene outside the agency’s Austin offices: a tailgate party where hundreds of people from around the state cooked out, shared cold drinks and talked about the reason they’d come — the potential construction of border barriers through state park property in far West Texas.

Cardboard cut-outs of desert animals with slogans like “Don’t fence us in” and “No wall, no wire, no way” lined the walkway leading to TPWD headquarters, mirroring chants from the crowd –– all hoping that the agency that oversees the state park system would finally respond to months of public outcry about the possibility of large-scale federal border wall construction on public land.

Videos of bulldozers tearing into Big Bend National Park have sparked headlines around the world, to the point that Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott personally paused construction until he could conduct an on-the-ground visit to the region.

But the federal government’s plans in neighboring Big Bend Ranch State Park and Black Gap Wildlife Management Area, both Texas Parks and Wildlife properties, are still up in the air. Customs and Border Protection has released little information to the public about its plans for border barrier construction on state land beyond an online map that has changed numerous times without warning.

Despite being one of the most pressing issues facing the agency, border barriers were not included in the agenda for the board’s quarterly meeting. The commission only holds one forum for in-person public comment per year, so organizers seized on the opportunity to speak to commissioners directly.

Mike Davidson, a river guide on the Rio Grande since 1977, said that in all of his years in the backcountry in Big Bend, he’d never once felt threatened by crime on the border. “We don’t see people trying to cross the river while we’re paddling,” he said.

David Long, a longtime TPWD employee and former superintendent of the Barton Warnock Center at Big Bend Ranch State Park, talked about the joys of teaching his grandsons how to safely navigate the river and the harsh Chihuahuan Desert backcountry.

“What is the legacy that we want to leave our future generations?” he asked the crowd. “Memories of how we coexist with nature and protect it –– or a scarred landscape?”

Ninety-nine people signed up to speak at Wednesday’s public hearing and the vast majority wanted to talk about border barriers, including a large contingency from the Big Bend region.

Hillary Pierce, an organizer for No Big Bend Wall, a group dedicated to stopping the construction of border barriers in Customs and Border Protection’s largest and least busy sector, said the pre-meeting tailgate was an attempt to make the gathering feel more like a celebration of Texas parks than a tense confrontation between the public and the commission.

“A lot of people don’t realize that the commission consists of people who are appointed directly by Gov. Abbott himself,” she explained. “In many cases, they are some of his biggest supporters, some of his biggest donors, and have a direct line to him. We’re hoping that they’ll advocate for us and amplify our voices in his ear.”

Former Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson, who has been trying to rally fellow Republicans to the cause, said opposing federal barriers in far West Texas has become a bipartisan cause. “I have yet to encounter anybody in the Big Bend area who does not oppose a wall,” he said.

Jake Walker, a board member of the Texas chapter of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, said that federal border projects could affect 20% of all publicly available hunting land in the state. “Any changes in the landscape could have an impact on our access to that wildlife,” he said.

While most commenters were concerned about TPWD holdings in Presidio and Brewster Counties, they are not the only properties that could be affected by the barrier project. Seminole Canyon State Park — home to the Lower Pecos style of rock art –– preserves a storytelling and design tradition thousands of years old.

The park has 80 recorded archeological sites spanning 10,000 years of human history, earning it a place on the National Register of Historic Places.

Amanda Castañeda, archeology director at Shumla, a nonprofit aimed at preserving the Lower Pecos rock art tradition, explained that CBP’s current plan would effectively cut the park in half with a six-foot fence that would cut off hiking trails and interpretive sites.

“This park contains a deep and varied history that Texans are proud of,” Castañeda said.

(Disclosure: Paul L. Foster has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in The Texas Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.)

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(This article by Austin Sarat, Amherst College, was originally published by The Conversation and is republished by permission via a Creative Commons license).

Since his return to the White House, President Donald Trump has issued over 270 executive orders.

That includes two orders issued in August 2026 addressing birthright citizenship, a subject seemingly settled by the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision. In June, the high court struck down Trump’s effort to deny citizenship to children born to foreign parents who are unlawfully in the United States.

One order directs federal agencies not to recognize U.S. citizenship for children of certain foreign national parents. They include the children of an “alien enemy,” meaning citizens of a foreign country that is at war with the United States, and children of parents who are employees of a foreign government – such as ambassadors, for example.

The second executive order calls on federal agencies to curtail so-called “birth tourism,” which it defines this way: the “entry of any foreign national into the United States via a nonimmigrant visa for the purpose of giving birth on American soil.”4

As someone who has studied citizenship law, I found the two birthright executive orders eye-catching. At first glance, they seemed to defy the Supreme Court’s birthright citizenship decision. But on closer examination, the picture is not so clear. That’s because the orders target aspects of birthright citizenship that the Supreme Court did not address in its June decision.

The Supreme Court decision

On the first day of his second term, Trump issued an executive order directing federal agencies to stop recognizing birthright citizenship for babies born in the U.S. if neither parent is a citizen or lawful permanent resident.

In June 2026, the Supreme Court struck down the order. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote: “Children born in the United States to parents unlawfully or temporarily present are … citizens at birth under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause.”

Roberts noted that the only people excluded from that clause are people who are exempt from U.S. jurisdiction, despite living on U.S. soil, such as ambassadors’ children and members of Native American tribes. The number of people covered by that exception is, as law scholars have noted, “trivial and easily administrable.”

Roberts’ opinion said nothing about birth tourism. That omission seems to have left room for Trump to craft his new executive orders.

While Georgetown law professor Steve Vladeck argues that the president is defying the court, I believe Trump is doing something different. He is engaged in what tax lawyers call “avoidance.”

The president is using lawful methods to identify loopholes in the court’s decision. Some scholars call it “legalistic noncompliance” – that is, getting around the court’s birthright citizenship decision while pretending to follow it.

Trump v. Hawaii

One way for a president to avoid the implications of an adverse court ruling is to claim a new action is authorized under a rule not discussed in the decision.

Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff, explained the legal basis of the new executive orders this way.

“Section 215 (a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act gives the president this authority,” Miller told reporters.

Nothing in the Supreme Court’s June birthright citizenship ruling touched on the president’s authority under the Immigration and Nationality Act.

However, the 2018 case Trump v. Hawaii did.

Decided during the president’s first term, after the so-called Muslim ban that suspended entry into the U.S. for people from some Muslim-majority countries, the Supreme Court held that the president “lawfully exercised the broad discretion granted to him… (by) the Immigration and Nationality Act … (to) suspend … the entry of aliens into the United States.”

The emphasis here is on “broad discretion.” As Roberts wrote in the majority opinion, the Immigration and Nationality Act allows the president to make “decisions whether and when to suspend entry … and on what conditions.” It is left to the president to figure out when “the entry of the covered aliens would be detrimental to the interests of the United States.”

The language in Trump’s birth tourism executive order reflects Roberts’ understanding of the scope of the authority granted to the chief executive by the Immigration and Nationality Act.

“Birth tourism,” the order says, “undermines the integrity of the Nation’s immigration system by enabling foreign nationals to exploit their temporary admission to obtain permanent immigration-related benefits. Birth tourism also … impairs the executive branch’s ability to protect the national security.”

Protection of national security was one of the grounds Roberts specifically cited in Trump v. Hawaii as a basis for the president to prevent foreign nationals from entering the United States. The president’s new executive orders try to circumvent the court’s birthright citizenship case by invoking a law not discussed in that case.

‘Ending it a different way’

During the Oval Office signing ceremony for his two new executive orders, the president was not subtle about his intentions regarding birthright citizenship. With Miller at his side, he called the Supreme Court’s June ruling “very unfair” and said that with new orders “we’re ending it a different way.”

In its Trump v. Hawaii ruling, the Supreme Court charted the route for him to do so.

But, as Vladeck argues, even if the president does not succeed in getting the court to approve the administration’s new effort to end birthright citizenship, it will continue to “try to muddy the waters when it comes to describing categories of non-citizens” and make the definition of citizenship not depend on where a child is born.

Instead, Vladeck says, an immigrant child’s status in this country would depend on “whether officials can pin a disqualifying label on her parent.”

That would leave the court’s birthright citizenship decision undisturbed, while hollowing out its practical effect.

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Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison is suing Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, alleging that Abbott is holding up the extradition of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer charged with assault in the shooting of Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis in Minneapolis on Jan. 14.

The agent, Christian Castro, was arrested in Cameron County, Texas, on May 29 by the Texas Rangers, a state law enforcement agency. He is still incarcerated in Texas.

Castro is charged with four counts of second-degree assault and one count of falsely reporting a crime. He is accused of firing his gun through the closed front door of a Minneapolis home, hitting Cesar-Solis in the leg. Three other people were inside the house, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said, and one of the bullets was found embedded in the wall of a child’s bedroom.

Castro is also charged with falsely reporting a crime because he accused Sosa-Celis and another Venezuelan immigrant of assaulting him with a broom and a snow shovel before Castro opened fire. The U.S. Department of Justice charged the two immigrant men with assaulting a federal agent, but the charges were dropped after surveillance footage disproved Castro’s claims.

A federal law prohibits law enforcement agencies from detaining fugitives awaiting extradition for longer than 90 days. That means Castro could be released from custody as soon as Wednesday, Aug. 26, Ellison said. His office is asking a federal judge to compel Abbott to instruct Cameron County authorities to hand over Castro to the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehensions and to block Castro’s release if he is not extradited before the 90-day deadline.

“Christian Castro is not above the law, and Greg Abbott isn’t either,” Ellison said.

A spokesperson from Abbott’s office initially said the governor would not comment on pending extradition matters. Tuesday afternoon, however, the office emailed the Reformer Abbott’s response to a reporter’s question about the lawsuit:

“Well, first of all, I don’t trust Tim Walz on anything, let alone something like this. While they’re making demands, I got a demand of my own, and that is, it’s time for Minnesota to step up and repay the United States of America and Americans for all the fraud that they have committed in their state under federal programs. I will not respond to them at all until they step up and do what’s right, and they acknowledge their fault in the fraud that took place, and they fully repay the United States of America for the fraud they committed.” -Texas Governor Greg Abbott

Ellison and Moriarty, whose office charged Castro, emphasized that extradition is a routine task and a settled point of law.

The U.S. Constitution requires states to facilitate the extradition of people charged in other states.

A unanimous 1987 Supreme Court ruling said “the commands of the Extradition Clause are mandatory, and afford no discretion to the executive officers or courts of the asylum state.”

Moriarty said Texas has facilitated the extradition of three defendants to Minnesota since Gov. Tim Walz sent the extradition paperwork for Castro to Abbott’s office on June 2 — only Castro’s case has been delayed during that time.

“It is an administrative process. It is not controversial,” Moriarty said.

Texas Democrats, who hold a minority in the state Legislature, are also pushing Abbott to hand over Castro.

Should Texas extradite ICE Agent Christian Castro to Minnesota?

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If you have been following US Border News’ coverage of the battle over building “border barriers” and “patrol roads” through the Big Bend in far (remote) West Texas, you know that bipartisan opposition is centered around the locals’ contention that the Federal Government’s plans are unnecessary and amount to a multi-billion-dollar grift that will benefit a large out-of-state GOP political donor.

The opposition prompted US Customs & Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott to announce a construction pause shortly after traveling to Texas from Washington, DC to meet with local Texas officials on Tuesday, August 18, 2026:

US Customs & Border Protection (CBP), along with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), insists that these construction projects not be called a “Border Wall,” but the ongoing build-outs have evolved into what Texas Monthly magazine has called “an act of mindless zealotry.”

The area is not just considered a “wild” part of Texas, but one of the last “dark skies” portions of the lower 48 states where astronomers can view stars and planets through their telescopes:

Robert Reich - who worked in the Presidential Administrations of Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, decried the Big Bend Border Barrier construction (as have others in West Texas) as “a grift.”

CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott’s Big Bend Fact-finding mission is expected to continue on Wednesday, August 19, 2026.

One GOP Texas State Representative (Wes Virdell of Brady, Texas) is on record as predicting this issue could produce a backlash against Republicans during the midterm elections if the party does not oppose the project.

UPDATE: The Big Bend Reporter has published details of CBP Commissioner’s fact-finding tour on Wednesday: According to the publication, Commissioner Scott boarded a helicopter for a tour of the park before landing “at the Santa Elena Canyon overlook, where he met with a group of people for about an hour.”

The outlet said, “Scott then traveled by vehicle from the overlook to the entrance of Santa Elena Canyon. Scott and those accompanying him remained in the canyon area for about 90 minutes before leaving.”

The Big Bend Reporter also said that “The helicopter later departed the area and flew upriver through Santa Elena Canyon toward Lajitas.”

Whether his tour will result in changes to DHS constriction plans in the Big Bend remains to be seen.

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Jack Beavers

Construction of “patrol roads” and “border barriers” has been halted in Big Bend National Park while US Customs & Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner Rodney Scott meets with local officials on Tuesday, August 18, 2026, to hear their opposition to the project.

Scott announced the construction pause shortly after arriving in Texas from Washington, DC on Monday, August 17:

Governor Greg Abbott, who had not commented on the Big Bend border construction controversy as opposition from both Republican and Democratic state and local leaders grew this month, was quick to claim credit for the temporary construction “pause” during an appearance in Waco Monday.

“I was told by the secretary that there would be no construction of any type of barrier in Big Bend National Park,” Abbott said. He told the Texas Tribune that Scott’s announcement on Monday “seems to be a consequence of my conversation with the secretary this weekend.”

Texas GOP Land Commissioner Dr. Dawn Buckingham has already ordered a halt to unauthorized border barrier construction on state land in the Big Bend.

A bipartisan group of Texas Border Sheriffs as well as all County Judges along the Texas border with Mexico are also on record as opposing the Big Bend Border Barriers.

Senator John Cornyn and West Texas Congressional candidate Brandon Herrera are among the GOP politicians expressing concerns or opposition to the project, along with Democratic Senate Candidate James Talarico (and many other Texas Democratic state and local politicians).

Retired Border Patrol Agent turned West Texas Sheriff Thaddeus Cleveland - a friend of CBP Commissioner Scott - since their days serving in the Border Patrol almost 30 years ago (and who publicly called for him to come to West Texas a week ago), told the Texas Tribune that Border Sheriffs from Terrell, Brewster, Hudspeth and Jeff Davis Counties are meeting with the CBP Commissioner in Alpine, Texas Tuesday afternoon.

The Big Bend Border Patrol Sector encounters the lowest numbers - by far - of illegal crossings along the entire US Southern Border (despite being the largest sector). Those opposing the border barriers argue that the terrain itself (high cliffs rising on both sides of the Rio Grande and a dangerous Chihuahuan Desert landscape devoid of water and shade stretching endlessly above them) constitutes “God-given barriers” to illegal crossings, making this multi-billion dollar project a taxpayer boondoggle.

Whether Commissioner Scott (and the rest of the Trump Administration) agrees remains an open question. For now, the bulldozers and other heavy equipment remain idle.

Do you support construction of “Border Barriers” and “Patrol Roads” in the Big Bend area of West Texas?

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Abrazos,

Jack Beavers