Supreme Court clears the way for border wall construction in Texas’s Big Bend to resume

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court cleared the way Monday for the Trump administration to resume border wall construction in the Big Bend region of Texas, a blow to bipartisan opponents who had argued the project is a waste of money that threatens the unique landscape.

The border wall is a signature project of President Donald Trump, who has long vowed to build a wall from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico.

Landowners and business owners in the Big Bend region, environmentalists and others who’ve opposed the construction project were bitterly disappointed with the court’s decision.

“This horrific decision clears the way for contractors to bulldoze pristine desert and dynamite canyon walls before the courts have even decided whether this destruction is legal," said Laiken Jordahl, national public lands advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the groups that sued to stop the construction. “They’re signing off on the permanent destruction of the wildest place in Texas, and the theft of a great American river from all of us.”

Republicans in Congress last summer funded the project with $46 billion, and Customs and Border Protection has been rapidly erecting 12 miles of barriers a week across the entire border with a goal of eventually covering the entire 2,000-mile border with a mixture of 30-foot-tall steel walls, vehicle barriers and surveillance technology designed to stop illegal immigration and smuggling.

The government has pushed forward by issuing sweeping waivers to bypass regulations. Those rules are aimed at protecting the environment, but have historically slowed down major construction projects.

In Texas’s Big Bend region, bipartisan opposition has rallied to fight back against the project, which would include 30-foot-tall steel walls in some areas as well as vehicle barriers and new roads.

They’ve argued that the barriers are a waste of money that threaten the local economy and lifestyle in an area of historically low illegal immigration. They say the job could be better done using only surveillance technology like drones.

A judge in Texas sided with opponents, finding that Congress likely had not clearly authorized such broad waivers for an area with the southern border’s lowest rate of migrant apprehensions. She ordered an immediate stop to all construction-related activity in the area, which includes Big Bend National Park as well as land up and down river in state and private hands.

The Trump administration filed an emergency appeal, saying there are illegal border crossings and drug seizures in Big Bend. More traffic could also be funneled there if there’s a gap in the wall, federal attorneys argued.

Customs and Border Protection head Rodney Scott said in an interview with The Associated Press that if the Big Bend area were left without a wall or other border infrastructure while other areas along the border get those fortifications, he's convinced it would be swiftly overrun by cartels.

The Supreme Court agreed that the law sharply limits judges’ powers to intervene when the federal government decides speedy border barrier construction is necessary. The majority paused the lower court decision as the case plays out. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented.

CBP did not immediately respond to questions about how swiftly construction could restart. The agency started building an initial section of border wall in one area of the roughly 500-mile stretch that makes up the Big Bend region, but that was stopped with the judge's order.

The agency has encountered intense opposition from landowners up and down the region when it comes to getting permissions to enter their land to survey and build.

The Center for Biological Diversity sued over the construction, along with Friends of the Ruidosa Church and a river guide in the Big Bend area. Jordahl said it was the first time the government had waived a broad set of environmental laws inside a national park.

David Keller lives in the Big Bend region, is a member of the board of Conserve Big Bend and is a plaintiff in a separate lawsuit of landowners opposing the border wall projects.

He called the court’s decision devastating: “Everything is on the line again.”

Keller called the border infrastructure projects the “industrialization of one of the last best open undeveloped wild places in the lower 48 states.”

“We can’t afford to lose any more. Not an ounce. Not an acre,” he said. “We need wild country to be who we are, to be fully human, to be American I would say.”

The projects have drawn criticism from both Democrats and Republicans, including outgoing Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, who wrote an op-ed arguing against the project published Monday in the San Antonio Express-News hours before the court's decision.

“A combination of modern technology, adequate staffing, and meaningful cooperation with local officials and landowners offers a more sensible and effective path forward than indiscriminate construction of unnecessary barriers,” Cornyn wrote.

The government in August paused construction activity in Big Bend National Park that sparked outrage when bulldozers were spotted breaking ground in the park.

The government has repeatedly said no steel walls are planned for the national park. Initial plans included a new road as well as some vehicle barriers in the park. CBP has said in court filings that it will come forward with a finalized plan for what it intends to build in the national park but so far hasn’t done so while the case was at the Supreme Court.

FILE - Heavy equipment and machinery intended for work on border barriers and roads are stored in a yard, Sept. 25, 2026, near Terlingua, Texas. (AP Photo/John Locher, File)

FILE- Lightning illuminates the sky behind a mockup of the border wall in protest of proposed barriers along the border, Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026, in Terlingua, Texas. (AP Photo/John Locher, File)

FILE - Charlie Angell stands on an overlook of the Rio Grande river during a guiding trip in Big Bend Ranch State Park, Sept. 24, 2026, near Redford, Texas. (AP Photo/John Locher, File)

FILE - Pamela Priddy, center, holds up signs with others during a weekly protest against barriers along the border in the Big Bend region, Sept. 26, 2026, in Study Butte, Texas. (AP Photo/John Locher, File)

FILE - A portion of border wall is under construction in the Big Bend region, Sept. 23, 2026, near Sierra Blanca, Texas. (AP Photo/John Locher, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Rep. Thomas Massie moved Monday to force a vote to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, pressing his fellow Republicans to remove one of the Trump administration's most prominent figures following sweeping election losses blamed in part on fallout from the war in Iran.

Massie, a Kentucky Republican, read the impeachment resolution from the House floor just hours after it opened for the first day of sessions after the midterms. It largely focuses on the war in Iran but also includes references to Hegseth’s role in carrying out military actions in Yemen and Venezuela.

The congressman, who was defeated by a Trump-backed challenger in a primary earlier this year, said Hegseth's actions amounted to “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

Hegseth, he said, “knowingly executed and implemented unlawful orders” and “remains a threat to the Constitution.”

President Donald Trump lashed out at Massie personally just hours after the congressman read the resolution, calling him a “loser” who “has a lot of hatred in his heart.”

A vote in the House could come by mid-week, but next steps are highly uncertain. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries supports the measure. If most Democrats follow him, Massie would only need support from a few Republicans to impeach Hegseth.

If the House votes to impeach, it would fall to to the Senate to either dismiss the charges or hold a trial. Republicans remain in the majority in both chambers, until the new Congress convenes in January with Democrats in control.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader, endorsed the impeachment push. "Hegseth must stand trial before the Senate," he said.

Republican leaders, who are eager to use their final weeks in power executing their own agenda, expressed frustration at the move. House Speaker Mike Johnson, who has tried to prevent the vote, said impeachment “in the middle of hostilities abroad would be a terrible, terrible look, a terrible thing for our allies and our enemies to see that.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he wasn’t sure why the vote was being held now.

“We’ll see what their ultimate decision is over there,” he said of the House. “We’ll have to deal with it accordingly here."

Hegseth is stepping up his public statements ahead of the vote, telling reporters that he's eager to defend the military actions that he and Trump have taken against Iran, Yemen's Iranian-backed Houthi rebels and Venezuela's previous leaders.

After giving a speech at the Naval War College in Rhode Island, he brushed aside the impeachment push.

“There’s a lot of politically motivated people who may have substantial policy disagreements, but their disagreements are with success,” he told reporters. He added that “if we want to litigate” the military actions that the Trump administration has taken, “I’m happy to do it all day long.”

Asked about Vice President JD Vance blaming the Iran war for the massive GOP losses in the election, Hegseth noted that Trump said he would do it again, and “I agree.”

Hegseth also announced that he would hold a rare news conference on Tuesday — his first in over 180 days — on the impeachment threat.

Hegseth argued that the war was necessary because “someone had to confront the Iranian regime’s pursuit of a nuclear weapon” and said “the choice was don’t act and wish it away or take a bold move."

Iran has long maintained that its nuclear program is peaceful. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran has 440.9 kilograms (972 pounds) of uranium that is enriched up to 60% purity, a short, technical step from weapons-grade levels of 90%.

Trump defended Hegseth to reporters on Monday, commending him for having “won the war” in Venezuela and “winning the war” in Iran, which continues to drag on.

Hegseth reiterated that “Iran is devastated,” even though the Islamic Republic has been able to keep striking military bases in the Middle East that are used by the United States, causing billions of dollars in damage, as well as commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz. Disruptions to shipping in the waterway, where one-fifth of the world's oil passed before the war, have led to higher energy prices that hit voters' pocketbooks.

Hegseth's defense of the war comes after about 6 in 10 voters said the U.S. made the “wrong decision” in taking military action against Iran, according to The AP Voter Poll, a survey of more than 100,000 voters in the United States.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended his fellow Cabinet secretary, saying that he believes Hegesth has been doing “a great job” and that its unfair that a Republican is pushing the impeachment effort.

“I work with him. And so I see perhaps a side of him that the media doesn’t see and members of Congress may not see,” Rubio told reporters at the Group of Seven industrialized democracies gathering in Paris. “But I think Pete works really hard. He’s incredibly smart.”

Associated Press writers Kevin Freking, Lisa Mascaro, Joey Cappelletti and Farnoush Amiri contributed to this report.

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth leaves after attending the Association of Southeast Asian Nations' Defense Ministers' Meeting in Cebu, central Philippines, Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2026, (AP Photo/Aaron Favila, Pool)