EL PASO — To install more border barriers, the Trump administration wants to seize 14 acres of land on an iconic mountain outside of El Paso owned by the Catholic Diocese of neighboring Las Cruces, New Mexico, that attracts thousands of people for an annual religious pilgrimage.
The land the federal government wants to take sits at the bottom of Mount Cristo Rey, a 720-foot-tall mountain with a 29-foot-tall statue of Jesus Christ at its summit, that overlooks Ciudad Juárez, El Paso and Sunland Park, N.M.