In late June, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) revealed the location of 95 miles of Trump’s new border wall in the Rio Grande Valley. Some stretches of the 95 miles had already been publicly identified by CBP, but the new “request for input” represents the first time the agency has released maps or asked for public comment for much of flood-prone Starr County.
The new maps confirm what many have long suspected: All along the three border counties of the Rio Grande Valley—Cameron, Hidalgo, and Starr—hundreds of property owners in the path of the wall could lose their homes and farms. Tracts of the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge, including two where CBP ignored the suggestions of federal biologists, will be carved up. And alarmingly, 52 miles of border wall in Starr County will snake in and out of the Rio Grande floodplain.
The simple, clean lines on the maps belie the serious impacts that a wall will have on those of us who call the borderlands our home. As the Observer previously reported, a wall built in the floodplain will put communities on both sides of the Rio Grande at risk.
