NewsThoughts: Border Walls and Robo Cops

Good morning, afternoon, or whenever it is that you read this. In far West Texas, the threat of land seizures for a border wall has families on edgeI went to Big Bend National Park back in March of this year and much had changed in the intervening nine or so years since I had last visited. However, two major things remained the same: first, Big Bend is vast, lonely, and heavily underdeveloped. Second is that this land is extremely vulnerable and requires protection. The biggest change I noticed, however, was not the increased tourism economy in Terlingua, but the presence of an organization called No Big Bend Wall According to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the Big Bend Region has logged nearly the lowest amount of border encounters in 2026. Border encounters by region. Data courtesy of US Customs and Border Protection Over the past few months, the federal government has been contracting with construction companies, waiving environmental restrictions, and reaching out to…