The New “Smart” Border Wall Comes To Texas

On January 28, 2026, a Barnard Construction engineer-in-training Uqba Manzoor called Ruben Carrasco, the road and bridge supervisor for Presidio County in West Texas and asked about sewage permits. In an email sent later that day, he wrote: “We are building the border fence. We will have to build an RV park that will require sceptic [sic].”

According to news reports, Barnard had no contract for such work. But that arrived just 36 days later on March 5, when the Department of Homeland Security awarded a $960,423,540 to Barnard. That same day, the company received two more contracts, about $1 billion for Hudspeth County and roughly $600 million for Del Rio. More than $2.5 billion in a single day. The news might have been overshadowed by another major event: Trump fired DHS Secretary Kristi Noem.

A new DHS Secretary has just been confirmed, and the work on a new “smart” border wall has started, despite some pushback and concerns about what it means for miles upon miles of Texas land.

The One Big Beautiful Bill

In July 2025, Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, a budget package with $46.5 billion for border infrastructure construction. The funds are available through September 2029 and, as reconciliation funding, are unaffected by government shutdowns. By late February 2026, total contract obligations had reached $13.6 billion, according to DHS. After the March 5 Big Bend awards, the total exceeded $17 billion, more than 37 percent of the fund in less than a year.

The money came in three waves: in September 2025, $4.5 billion for ten projects from San Diego to Del Rio; in November and December, another $3.3 billion for the Laredo and Del Rio sectors; and in March 2026, $3.76 billion for the Big Bend region in West Texas. Only five companies preselected by CBP through a closed 2023 contract are eligible to build: BCCG JV, Fisher Sand & Gravel, Barnard/Spencer JV, SLSCO LTD, and Granite Construction.

In June 2025, the Texas Legislature quietly defunded its own border wall program. Over four years, the state spent $3 billion and built 65 miles, 8 percent of the 805 miles it had planned. Governor Abbott proposed transferring state-built border infrastructure to the federal government, which contradicts the position of some sheriffs and some legislators. During Trump’s entire first term, the federal government built 21 miles of wall in Texas out of 52 miles of new wall nationwide, in locations where no barriers existed before.

 Contracts and the Companies Behind Them 

Program oversight went to Parsons Government Services for $609 million. Its role is called Owner’s Agent, an oversight contractor working on behalf of the government. The contract was signed in December 2025, but DHS publicly announced it only on February 17, 2026, two months later, calling it a “historic step.” At the time of the announcement, less than $3.6 million of the $609 million had been obligated.

Various Parsons entities appear in the nonprofit organization Good Jobs First’s violation tracker  with nine penalty records and $5.7 million paid in penalties, including $3.8 million in 2015 to settle allegations that the company knowingly mis-charged the U.S. Department of Energy for ineligible or inflated short-term and long-term employee relocation costs

SLSCO LTD of Galveston, a company owned by the Sullivan brothers, received $1.04 billion for the Del Rio and Laredo sectors. In 2020, the company was sued in federal court over allegations that armed guards illegally brought from Mexico had been providing security at construction sites. In the summer of 2019, a shootout occurred at one of the sites. An employee who reported the alleged violations was fired. The Justice Department did not intervene, and the whistleblowers voluntarily dismissed the case. Under Governor Abbott, the company received more than $300 million in state contracts without competitive bidding.

Barnard Construction of Montana took three contracts totaling $2.56 billion. During the 2024 election cycle, the company spent $1.85 million on political contributions, including $4,000 personally to Noem that year from [A5] [A6] the owners. In early February, before federal contracts were officially awarded, a Barnard representative approached the Presidio Municipal Development District to request space to stage roughly 500 workers at its industrial park. The district declined.

The largest single package, $3.1 billion, went to BCCG A Joint Venture. Federal contract records list only the venture’s name, not its member companies. In a December 2025 press release, AIS Infrastructure identified the venture’s partners: its subsidiary BCSS, along with Caddell Construction of Montgomery, Alabama, and Gibraltar of Burnet, Texas. All seven of BCCG’s awards appear under the joint venture name alone in CBP’s official announcement.

Fisher Sand & Gravel has received more than $8 billion in DHS contracts since July 2025, including $1.2 billion for Big Bend. In 2019, the company built a 3 mile private wall right on the Rio Grande south of Mission, without clearance from the International Boundary and Water Commission, which under a 1970 treaty with Mexico must approve construction on the river. Hydrologists and engineers found the foundation extended only 2.5 feet into the ground, less than half the 6-to-7-foot government standard, and that the structure would not survive a flood. In 2022, Fisher settled a Justice Department lawsuit, posting a $3 million bond for 15 years and agreeing to quarterly IBWC inspections for as long as the company owns the property.

Former Secretary Noem waived laws that were slowing construction. Her first waiver in April 2025, according to Earthjustice, suspended 29 laws, including the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act. In October, DHS also waived the federal procurement statutes themselves: competitive bidding rules, bonding requirements, and transparency mandates.

Big Bend and the National Park

Big Bend stretches just over 517 miles, the longest and least populated section of the southern border. Last fiscal year, 3,096 people were apprehended there, fewer than in any of the nine border sectors, and about one percent of all border apprehensions nationwide. Big Bend National Park generated about $56.8 million for the local economy in 2024, the most recent NPS data available, and welcomed more than 560,000 visitors.

Landowners in three West Texas counties are receiving official letters from CBP describing the plan: 30-foot steel barriers, cameras, floodlights, patrol roads. The letters say that if an agreement cannot be reached, the Justice Department will initiate eminent domain proceedings. 

Under President Bush, similar condemnations for the wall in Texas generated more than 360 lawsuits that dragged on for decades. The administration also has a “quick take” mechanism, which allows it to take physical control of a property immediately after filing suit, without waiting for a court to determine compensation.

The Sheriffs' Position

On March 10, West Texas sheriffs issued a joint statement opposing the wall. “It'll ruin this county,” said Brewster County Sheriff Ronny Dodson. If it's a real wall, it will devastate us. We don't have oil and gas, we have tourism.” The Terrell County sheriff Thaddeus Cleveland added: “It's something I never thought we would see.” 

The Smartwall Map and Its Quiet Changes

Abbott's press secretary Andrew Mahaleris told Marfa Public Radio that “rugged, isolated areas like Big Bend are great opportunities to deploy technology to aid in securing the border.” The contracts call for a physical wall. The official CBP Smart Wall map changed plans for the region three times without any explanation. In October 2025, Big Bend showed only surveillance technology. On February 27, a green line of physical wall ran through the national park on the map. After a wave of news coverage, the line quietly disappeared. CBP explained none of these changes. The No Big Bend Wall group said it did not know “if this is a real policy shift or a tactical one designed to lower our guard.” The Noem February waiver covering the entire sector has not been rescinded, and 175 miles in the physical wall zone remain designated as such in all three versions of the map.

CBP expects to finalize contracts by mid-2026 and begin construction before the end of the year. Engineers are already conducting surveys inside the national park, and contractors are looking for sites to set up camps for 500 to 600 workers. The deadline for public comments to CBP is April 6.