THANK YOU NEW YORK TIMES for this video exposing the lies and deception of the corrupt neo-nazi fascist drumpf/trump-vance administration and the gop / grifting of public lands-republican party about the damage and destruction going on in Big Bend National Park. This is just another reason to vote for the Democratic Party and Democratic Socialist of America candidates in the 2026 Midterm elections on Tuesday, November 3rd, 2026. How Satellite Images of Big Bend Contradict Border Agency Claims
By Christoph Koettl, Ainara Tiefenthäler, Luke Piotrowski and Alexander Cardia
September 4, 2026
transcript
Customs and Border Protection claimed that construction on a border security project in Big Bend National Park in Texas was limited to “survey and design” work. Visual Investigations’ satellite specialist Christoph Koettl tracked the activity and found evidence of patrol roads and vehicle barriers already being built.
Satellite imagery is like a time machine. You can get a much deeper understanding of a very specific location on Earth and how it’s changing over time. In this case, I used it to show in detail what Customs and Border Protection is really doing in Big Bend National Park in Texas. And I started with this image here, an aerial image from 1948. This was shot on actual Kodak film, a really stunning image that shows the beauty of the location. If you zoom in you see that humans had very little impact here. A little road here. Now, if you go forward in time a few decades, all that was added is a scenic drive to give better access to visitors to enjoy nature. It’s well known for spectacular hiking and for amazing stargazing. The reason being that there’s just no light pollution, so it’s a really remote, untouched area, until now. What you see now is bulldozers lining up just outside the park. Inside the park, we see a similar scene. A bulldozer and other machinery right here. Once you get closer to the border, there’s a completely new road being bulldozed through the trees here. All of this is part of the Trump administration’s bigger plan to increase security at the U.S. Southern border. I sent satellites over the area to get high-resolution imagery, and monitor it in real time. And I found four separate areas of construction. This is the rough order in which the work was done. This seems to contradict Customs and Border Protection, saying that no construction is happening yet and that no new roads are being built. Big Bend National Park is right here. It’s right in the border area between the U.S. and Mexico, and it is federally protected land. This year, the Department of Homeland Security waived all these protections and wanted to start building. Border Protection’s plan here is close to 200 miles of patrol road and a few vehicle barriers as well. The four areas where I found construction matches up perfectly with these plans. The proposed plan has caused quite a backlash. Environmental groups and residents have filed several lawsuits. I got a hold of the court documents. They include emails of a Department of Justice lawyer and it tells us several things. First, the government agreed to give 30-day advance notice before they start building. But they didn’t do that. They said there’s no set date yet for the construction of new roads. And they also said that this is pre-construction work and is not considered ground-disturbing activity. A few days later then, the bulldozers started to show up and they started construction. Border Protection told local media that they were regrading roads that were damaged by recent storms. Satellite imagery shows something different. Let’s look at that first area in the park and see what actually happened. I got a high-resolution image that shows a new road popping up right next to the Rio Grande — the border with Mexico. The road is roughly 20 to 25 feet wide, and that matches perfectly the description of Border Protection’s new patrol road. Here you can see how it looked in May of this year. And here’s how it looked in August. In some of the imagery, you can even see the earth-moving equipment. So I followed the construction crew on an almost daily basis. They started over here around Aug. 6. We’re here around Aug. 9. Then advanced to over here on Aug. 11. On Aug. 13, Border Protection starts to shift the language a little bit. Commissioner Rodney Scott calls it now “survey and design work,” and says that one new access road will be built. An access road is a road that vehicles use to get to the construction sites. That’s not what the satellite imagery shows. Let me show you a second area. So the reason why this satellite image is black and white is because it got very cloudy. But this is a radar satellite imagery that can look through clouds. And so here you see the hills. This is vegetation here. This is an existing road. And these bright spots here., this is the excavator. These are the two bulldozers. These are grading machines. And here is some new construction. When we overlay the C.P.B. plan, it matches up perfectly where they said they want to build vehicle barriers. These are basically 4 to 6 feet-high steel fences to stop cars. This is very rugged terrain. And in this video sent to me by an employee of an environmental group, you can actually see the construction up close. Not too far is the third area — they’re building more vehicle barriers here. And over here is the fourth area. And we see the exact same pattern again, they’re bulldozing a new road through this areas with trees. They said no new construction, but here they’re actually building a new tiny bridge over here with a drainage area. And they started this area around Aug. 14 and 15. If you look back at the overview map here, you have four separate areas where construction work has started. This is a total of six miles of patrol road and vehicle barriers. It matches up perfectly with the plan by Border Protection. It definitely goes beyond survey and design work. I reached out several times to Border Protection and they did not respond to my questions about construction in Big Bend. I also got in touch with the Department of Justice, and they told me that they had nothing to add. When the first videos showing construction crews and bulldozers showed up online, there was a massive backlash and as a result, the C.B.P. commissioner on Aug. 17 pulled what he called then “construction” on pause. But it’s unclear if and when construction will resume.
