In a victory for environmentalists and immigration rights’ advocates, a federal judge in El Paso, Texas, has blocked further border wall construction inside Big Bend National Park. “We slammed the brakes on $7 billion worth of corrupt construction contracts,” says Laiken Jordahl, a national public lands advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity, which sued to block the expansion. “We have effectively stopped construction across West Texas, and it’s incredible.”
Jordahl also responds to the Trump administration’s excavation of a 200-year-old cottonwood tree on the Arizona-Mexico border that had been protected by activists for months. “Watching those videos of them toppling this ancient tree that was very likely older than the border itself is symbolic of how DHS has treated the border region. They see our communities, our wildlife, our nature as a sacrifice zone,” says Jordahl.
