The Missing Voice in the Border Wall Debate: If the Rio Grande Could Speak
by
Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.
April 29, 2026
At first glance, this article published in The Big Bend Sentinel appears to offer a compelling account of grassroots mobilization, documenting how Texans gathered in Austin to protest the proposed border wall and defend places like Big Bend National Park. Yet, upon closer examination, the piece reveals a far more troubling limitation. It foregrounds human sentiment—memory, attachment, identity—while failing to meaningfully engage the land, the river, and the more-than-human world as subjects of concern in their own right. In doing so, it ultimately diminishes the gravity of what is at stake.
The article’s most significant shortcoming is its deeply anthropocentric framing. By this, I mean that the Big Bend region and the Rio Grande are rendered primarily as sites of human experience—places to visit, enjoy, and remember. Protesters’ concerns that the wall would “ruin the aesthetic” or restrict access are not insignificant; however, they remain confined within a human-centered epistemology, or way of knowing, that obscures a more fundamental question:
What obligations do we have to the land itself? What claims might the river assert, were it recognized as more than a resource? What of the animals whose lives and migratory pathways would be irreparably disrupted?
Here, the writings of Anishinaabe scholar John Borrows (2010, 2019) offers a critical intervention. He argues that law is not merely a system of codified rules but is constituted through relationships—among humans, and crucially, between humans and the natural world. Within many Indigenous legal traditions, land, water, and non-human beings are not objects external to law; they are integral to its formation and meaning. Law, in this sense, is relational and place-based, emerging from longstanding practices of reciprocity and responsibility.
The article gestures briefly toward the more-than-human world in its description of protestors holding images of bears, mountain lions, deer, and other wildlife. Yet this moment is not developed. It is treated as symbolic rather than substantive. There is no sustained engagement with the ecological consequences of the proposed wall—its role in fragmenting habitats, interrupting migratory routes, and destabilizing a desert ecosystem that has evolved over millennia.
From Borrows’ perspective, such omissions are not merely journalistic gaps; they reflect a deeper failure to recognize that environmental degradation constitutes a rupture in the very relationships that law ought to sustain (Borrows, 2019).
Moreover, the article’s emphasis on land ownership and government overreach reproduces a familiar, and ultimately limiting, legal grammar. By centering questions of private and state control, it reinscribes a property-based framework that has long underwritten environmental exploitation. Land is treated as something to be owned, accessed, or regulated, rather than as a living system to which humans are accountable.
Borrows (2010) challenges precisely this orientation, demonstrating that many Indigenous legal orders prioritize responsibilities to land over rights of domination—a shift that carries profound implications for how we understand governance, justice, and sustainability.
This brings us to a broader jurisprudential impasse. Contemporary legal systems in the United States remain structurally oriented toward the protection of human interests and property relations. Within such a framework, entities like the Rio Grande lack standing; they cannot assert claims, seek redress, or demand protection. Emerging movements around the “rights of nature” seek to address this limitation by recognizing ecosystems as legal persons.
Importantly, Borrows’ work reminds us that such developments are not without precedent. They resonate with longstanding Indigenous legal traditions in which the natural world is understood as part of a broader legal community (Borrows, 2019). To recognize this is not to romanticize Indigenous knowledge, but to acknowledge its ongoing relevance in confronting contemporary ecological crises.
What the article ultimately reveals, then, is not simply a contested infrastructure project, but the inadequacy of prevailing legal and journalistic frameworks to apprehend it. Even in moments of resistance, discourse remains tethered to anthropocentric assumptions that obscure the full scope of environmental harm. Protest is articulated in terms of human loss—access, aesthetics, identity—rather than as a defense of the integrity of ecological systems themselves.
This should alarm us. The waiving of environmental protections, the opacity surrounding federal actions, and the potential for irreversible ecological damage demand not only critical reflection but public accountability. Silence from state leadership is untenable. Greg Abbott should not remain absent from a matter of such consequence to Texas lands, waters, and communities. At a minimum, Texans deserve transparency, deliberation, and a clear articulation of the state’s position.
Accordingly, this is a moment that calls for engagement. Residents should contact their elected representatives and insist upon the protection of the Big Bend region and the ecosystems it sustains. Information on legislative representation in Texas is available at https://wrm.capitol.texas.gov/home. Such actions, while modest, are essential in signaling that these issues carry public weight and demand a response.
If we are to move forward, however, more fundamental shifts are required. Protecting places like Big Bend necessitates rethinking the conceptual foundations of law, governance, and ethics. It requires moving beyond a framework in which land is valued primarily for human use, toward one in which land, water, and non-human life are recognized as participants in a shared legal and moral order.
Until such a shift occurs, accounts like this one will continue to gesture toward crisis without fully apprehending its depth. And the land, the river, and the countless beings who depend on them will remain, quite literally, outside the law.
References
Borrows, J. (2010). Canada’s Indigenous constitution. University of Toronto Press.
Borrows, J. (2019). Law’s indigenous ethics. University of Toronto Press.
Bubacz, K. (2026, April 5). Thousands of Texans protest border wall at state capitol. The Big Bend Sentinel. https://bigbendsentinel.com/2026/04/05/thousands-of-texans-protest-border-wall-at-state-capitol/
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| Texans from across the state join Big Bend residents for a rally against the border wall at the Capitol in Austin Saturday. Kate Bubacz photo. |
Santa Elena Canyon was an alternate rally for river enthusiasts
Over 2,000 Texans stood on the steps of the state Capitol in Austin to sing, dance and protest the border wall that is planned in the Big Bend region. Undeterred by the rain and the Easter holiday weekend, attendees asserted their pride in the beloved, wild western corner of the state and their disbelief that both private and public land could be needlessly harmed by outside forces.
“I think being out here and being so angry helps define who is a true Texan,” said John Riddle, an Austin resident who visited the Big Bend National Park with friends last spring. The cause has united people from across the state and from both sides of the aisle. Everyone in the crowd seemed to have a story or a special memory about visiting the parks, and many seemed to feel personally offended that the Texas government would allow a federal administration to interfere with their private and state land.
“Nobody says we don’t need border security. A wall would keep us out of our treasured landscapes,” said retired park ranger Raymond Skiles, who led an enthusiastic chant of, “Don’t wall us out.”
The citizens who gathered were entirely volunteer led. Drew Heugel, a tech employee who lives in Austin, was one of the original event organizers. He was visiting the Big Bend region in February when news of the border wall broke. When he posted an idea of protest on his Facebook, he expected a few hundred likes. Instead, the idea took hold, attracting the support of thousands.
“I’m impressed with how people have rallied,” he said, under a tent that was bustling with volunteers handing out information to people walking up to the Capitol. Heugel worked in coordination with several local volunteer groups that have organized in the last two months, including Save Big Bend and the No Big Bend Wall groups.
Judah Hill, 14, came with his family from Houston specifically to attend the protest on Easter weekend. His family has a tradition of going to Big Bend to climb mountaintops. He held a sign that said, “The wall doesn’t match the aesthetic,” a playful Gen Z nod to how it would ruin the landscape.
The peaceful protest had a joyful but determined air as people gathered in the chilly afternoon to listen to two hours of speakers and singers, including Willie Nelson’s daughter Amy and Jimmy Dale Gilmour, along with an array of politicians from both parties.
Some 500 miles away at Santa Elena Canyon in Big Bend National Park, about 150 people showed up by cars and boats to what they termed a “picnic” that featured protest signs and paintings along with speakers on bullhorns and chants against the wall.
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Paddlers at Big Bend National Park’s Santa Elena canyon make their thoughts on a border wall known at a Saturday rally on the river. Jennifer Pittinger photo. |
Protestors waded in the river, and dozens of boats lined the shore. “Really, we’re giving Mexico the Rio Grande and our border land,” read one sign. Another group of people stood in the river holding giant, painted cardboard cutouts of animals—beavers, bears, mountain lions, javelina and deer.
Back in Austin, Brandon Herrera and Katie Padilla Stout, staunch opponents vying for the region’s district congressional seat, both spoke at the Capitol against the wall. “We are here today to remind people you don’t mess with Texas,” said Stout, to cheers. “Nobody wants the wall in Big Bend,” said Herrera, minutes later.
In the six weeks since the wall was announced in Big Bend Sentinel, stiff opposition to it has organized and gained traction. A Customs and Border Patrol map originally showed a 517-mile steel wall planned, including the state and national park. The same map now shows smart technology planned through the parks and a steel structure through the remaining 175 miles upstream between Fort Quitman and Presidio. The map has become a key source of information, changing several times without warning or explanation, but Customs and Border Protection has never commented on the changes.
Back in Austin, Brandon Herrera and Katie Padilla Stout, staunch opponents vying for the region’s district congressional seat, both spoke at the Capitol against the wall. “We are here today to remind people you don’t mess with Texas,” said Stout, to cheers. “Nobody wants the wall in Big Bend,” said Herrera, minutes later.
In the six weeks since the wall was announced in Big Bend Sentinel, stiff opposition to it has organized and gained traction. A Customs and Border Patrol map originally showed a 517-mile steel wall planned, including the state and national park. The same map now shows smart technology planned through the parks and a steel structure through the remaining 175 miles upstream between Fort Quitman and Presidio. The map has become a key source of information, changing several times without warning or explanation, but Customs and Border Protection has never commented on the changes.
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| Protestors show off their signs against a Big Bend border wall at a protest at the Capitol in Austin Saturday. Kate Bubacz photo. |
No details about what detection technology entails have been provided, sparking unease about disruption to a delicate ecosystem. Surveyors and contractors have started to show up in the region, keeping landowners and locals on edge that they stand to lose access to both their land, and the Rio Grande, the key water source for hundreds of miles. Twenty-eight environmental and archaeological protections for the region have been waived as over $6 billion in contracts have been awarded. Gov. Greg Abbott has maintained his near silence on the issue, which was noted by the signs in the crowd.
“Why isn’t Abbott speaking up for Texas lands? Come out and say something” said Mary Ann Robinson, who drove from Alpine, Texas, to attend the Capitol event.
Abbott’s office did release a statement to KXAN TV in Austin saying the governor talked to the “Border Patrol chief, who told him no physical walls would be erected in the national or state park.”
“Don’t Tread on Me” and “Come and Take It” flags were flown and worn with pride in Austin as calls about government overreach were met with cheers. Frustration has been mounting for what protesters see as a lack of clear answers on an issue that defies sense for the rugged landscape, impedes on private property and water rights and would cost a fortune to American taxpayers.
“We just want them to leave the whole damn thing alone,” said Democratic Congressman Lloyd Doggett. “As far as a wall through Big Bend, it seems like nature did that herself a few millennia ago.”
The fight against the wall is far from over. Local groups are seeking to address letters received by private landowners from the federal government seeking access to their land, the restoration of environmental protections and revocation of contracts that have been awarded.
Christina Hernandez, a Presidio resident and member of People of La Junta, told the Austin crowd: “People were living in relationship with this land before pyramids were built, and today we’re being told that this land can be cut through by people far away.”
