The federal government is building the border wall at six miles per week. The $46 billion project is the largest sustained border infrastructure investment in American history. The plan runs from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico — all 2,000 miles — and it is already underway.
So what's the best the opposition could do to stop it?
They found a town of 3,200 people in West Texas and filed a paperwork complaint.
Presidio, Texas sits on the Rio Grande in the remote Big Bend Sector. On July 22, the town's development district filed suit in federal court arguing that wall construction near the river could compromise the levee system protecting Presidio from flash flooding. The lawsuit is real. The flooding concern may be legitimate. The lawyers behind it are not from Presidio.
They work for Democracy Forward, a Washington, D.C.-based legal organization.
Democracy Forward attorney Laura Bakst told the court that "there is unfortunately a long history here of CBP construction causing or increasing flood risks." The legal theory rests on the Rivers and Harbors Act, a federal regulation requiring government to seek Army Corps of Engineers approval before building on or near levees. Bakst and fellow Democracy Forward lawyer Louis Katz argue DHS is skipping that step.
This is a process argument, not a policy one. The lawsuit takes no position on whether the border needs a wall. It only challenges whether DHS completed the right paperwork. That's the legal equivalent of pulling someone over for a broken tail light when what you really object to is where they're driving.
The Justice Department responded with confidence. DOJ lawyer Alexander Yun told the court that construction in the Presidio area isn't expected before late August — possibly September or October — and no final plan exists yet for exactly where the wall will go in that stretch. Nobody has poured a single yard of concrete in the Big Bend Sector. The project is moving. It just hasn't reached Presidio yet.
Federal Judge Reggie Walton, presiding over the case, acknowledged it is "just a reality" that people will always try to cross the border. A sitting federal judge conceding that border management is a permanent reality doesn't sound like a court ready to halt $46 billion worth of it.
Democracy Forward's interest in Presidio begins and ends with its proximity to the construction path. Find a local plaintiff with a sympathetic story, fund the litigation, use the resulting court order to slow federal policy they oppose on ideological grounds. The residents of Presidio have a genuine interest in their levee system. The lawyers from Washington have a different interest entirely.
A lawsuit over one remote stretch of the Big Bend Sector, filed on behalf of a town of 3,200 people, does not stop 2,000 miles of construction. It slows one piece, in one location, for as long as the courts allow — while the rest of the wall goes up at six miles a week.
Presidio's 3,200 residents deserve flood protection. The other 330 million of us deserve a border wall. The Rivers and Harbors Act has a permitting process. It doesn't have a veto.