Some of the Department of Homeland Security’s strongest supporters along the border with Mexico are expressing relief that President Trump has ordered (now ex) DHS Secretary Kristi Noem “to take a ride out into the sunset,” to borrow a metaphor from the cowgirl image she liked to project.
Many of her critics on the Texas border share the same reason for wanting her gone, and their identities (and reasons) might surprise you.
At the top of that list is West Texas Sheriff Thaddeus Cleveland. He spent decades as a U.S. Border Patrol Agent before becoming the top lawman in one of Texas “reddest” border areas: Terrell County. (He’s also a frequent guest on cable news shows likely to be closely watched in the White House).
Sheriff Cleveland took to x.com not long after President Trump gave Noem the boot to say THIS:
Sheriff Cleveland is no squish when it comes to enforcing border security. He lives it daily along the Rio Grande River. He and his five deputies spend many nights alongside Border Patrol Agents chasing (and catching) small, but annoyingly persistent groups of illegal aliens trying to cross through his sparsely-populated but frontline border county:
But the first words of Sheriff Cleveland’s x.com post criticizing the former DHS Secretary tell the tale of a rupture with the DHS going back for some time, and that has been growing in recent days:
“This may help us with the wall situation in the Big Bend Region…”
DHS bureaucrats in Washington, DC, have long been hell-bent on ramming a physical border wall through Terrell County into the “Big Bend” area, even as the historically (very) conservative, and reliably Republican-majority locals who live there, like Sheriff Cleveland and West Texas border landowners (many whose families go back generations), have tried, so far in vain, to argue there is a better, cheaper, and far less destructive way to block the relatively few illegal crossings known to occur there.
What Sheriff Cleveland (and others like him - who we’ll get to in a moment) want instead is a “smart system” of AI-powered ground sensors and video surveillance towers to detect the small, but persistant illegal crossing attempts they respond to there, instead of a huge “dumb” border wall better suited for a more heavily-trafficked and urbanized area (like the lower Rio Grande Valley) :
This “smart wall” would be coupled with an existing fleet of DHS drones to track the small groups of illegal aliens who cross here and guide law officers to intercept them.
(Sheriff Cleveland explains their capabilities in an x.com post HERE).
The steep walls along the Rio Grande, and the vast (and often deadly) “badlands” above them, make a “Border Wall” here unnecessary, opponents say:
“We’ve got a God-made barrier,” Sheriff Cleveland argues.
And lest you think Sheriff Cleveland is the only person advocating this, 46 Texas lawmakers recently signed a letter to Gov. Greg Abbott to halt the border wall in the area.
Here is what others with a stake in this call for a “Smart Wall” have to say (and they’ve been making a case for years) that few in Washington seem to hear:
“It seems, frankly, ludicrous that anyone would even attempt it,” Betse Esparza, then a Brewster County commissioner and a Republican, told Buzzfeed in 2017. “I don’t see how it’s physically possible to build a wall. We have canyons. We have what people are referring to as a natural wall. I think we’re pretty good.”
Another thing that unites many people in the Big Bend against the Border Wall is that the area is home to two massive State and National Parks. The wall would block rafters and canoeists from the Rio Grande, which is the major reason visitors make the trek to the remote region:
“Many, many people have put their whole careers working out here, preserving and protecting this area,” Marcos Paredes, a retired river ranger, told USA Today in 2017. “In one fell swoop, we stand to undo all of that with a border wall.”
“It’ll ruin this county,” Ronny Dodson, Sheriff of solidly red Brewster County for more than two decades, told NBC News recently. “If it’s a real wall, it will devastate us. We don’t have oil and gas, we have tourism.”
President Trump has named Senator Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, Texas’ neighboring state, as Noem’s replacement.
Big Bend Border Wall opponents hope that his familiarity with their state, coupled with a growing rebellion in solidly red counties along the border (whose votes Republicans will need to hang onto a Texas US Senate Seat that may be in play following this week’s primaries), will finally allow their voices to be heard in the Trump White House.
UPDATE: “Our Public Lands & Waters” notes that a DHS map that showed a border wall between Big Bend’s Rio Grande canyons was “Planned,” (see left side of image below) on the day Noem was fired, now shows only “Detection Technology” (The “Smart Wall”) thoughout the entire National Park the day after President Trump fired her (see right side of image below).
Former Big Bend National Park Superintendent Bob Krumenaker told the “National Parks Traveler” that this development does NOT mean the Border Wall battle is over:
"The map still shows a wall in much of Big Bend Ranch State Park, which is just as destructive a proposal as in the national park. We remain concerned and vigilant and would like to see a clear public announcement from CBP of their intent and a commitment that it won’t change again, before we will assume this is over." - Bob Krumenaker, former Superintendent, Big Bend National Park
Do you think a “Border Wall” should be built in the Big Bend?
Share your opinion in the comments to this article!
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PS: If you want to learn more about what will be lost if the Big Bend Border Wall goes up, I recommend reading my friend and former co-worker Jim Bob Moore’s beautifully-written piece, “The Border Wall and All Y’all,” over at his Substack, “Texas to the World.”
Abrazos,
Jack Beavers
GREAT coverage Jack - for those of us far away, we don't understand the local scene, and appreciate your fair/balanced approach in just bringing us the news. I'm not gonna pile on Ms. Noem, but her get-ups and dramatic presence always confused me. I get that 'bosses' should be observing/visiting the teams to assess the situation - but her enjoyment of the camera's attention was a distraction for sure.
I'd like to meet Sheriff Cleveland one of these days. Maybe there's a way we can buy his duty team some coffee or some grub one night when they're on duty. I like his thinking.
Thanks again - great stuff.