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In far West Texas, the threat of land seizures for a border wall has families on edge Advertisement Read this article for free: or Already have an account?Log in here » To continue reading, please subscribe: Digital Subscription One year of digital access for only $1.44 a week* - Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com - Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper - Access News Break, our award-winning app - Play interactive puzzles *Billed as $5.77 plus GST every four weeks.After 52 weeks, price increases to the regular rate of $19.95 plus GST every four weeks.Offer available to new and qualified returning subscribers only.Cancel any time.To continue reading, please subscribe: Add Free Press access to your Brandon Sun subscription for only an additional $1 for the first 4 weeks* - Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com - Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper - Access News Break, our award-winning app - Play interactive puzzles *Your next Brandon Sun subscription payment will increase by $1.00 and you will be charged $17.95 plus GST for four weeks.After four weeks, your payment will increase to $24.95 plus GST every four weeks.Read unlimited articles for free today: or Already have an account?Log in here » As a teenager, Joe Carrasco would help his father pick onions and cotton on the family’s 40-acre ranch on the banks of the Rio Grande.On the weekends, he would mount his horse and wade across the river into Mexico, where he would race his horse and drink beers.Today, Carrasco is 71, retired after 26 years working in the oil fields, sitting under a carport with a Michelob Ultra beer and staring at the mountains while his cows graze on his alfalfa farm.“I like what I see,” he said.But he doesn’t like what he sees coming.Carrasco is one of an estimated 400 landowners in the Big Bend region whose land has been targeted by the Trump administration.Like other property owners along the Rio Grande, Carrasco received a letter from U.S.Customs and Border Protection earlier this year asking him to let contractors on his land to survey it or risk losing it through eminent domain.Over the past year, the Trump administration has sent mixed signals about its plans to erect border barriers in this rugged, mountainous region, saying that it prefers other infrastructure such cameras, sensors and vehicle barriers inside Big Bend National Park and the neighboring Big Bend Ranch State Park.Even though immigration officials have claimed they’re not building a wall in the parks, the federal government has awarded billions of dollars worth of contracts to companies that have previously built border walls for work within the parks.It has also waived environmental laws in the state and national park to speed up the process.And contractors are seeking permits to access enough water to house hundreds of workers in the area who will be tasked with building some form of border security infrastructure.But what is clear is that the federal government has threatened to seize land along broad swaths of the Rio Grande away from the parks.And that’s causing alarm up and down the river.“I don’t want a wall, I want to see this view,” Carrasco said, pointing at the mountains on the Mexican side of the river.One-quarter of the border, 1% of migrant traffic Big Bend is the largest Border Patrol sector, covering 77 Texas counties and 517 miles of the 1,954-mile-long U.S.-Mexico border.It is also the least busy.According to U.S.Customs and Border Protection, the agency recorded 3,096 migrant encounters in the sector in fiscal year 2025, or 1.3% of the 237,538 apprehensions recorded across the entire U.S.-Mexico border.That is a 74% drop compared to the two previous fiscal years.And in the first seven months of the current fiscal year, the sector has logged 1,236 encounters, a 42.5% drop compared to the first seven months of the previous year.Still, the Trump administration has described the region as “an area of high illegal entry where illegal aliens regularly attempt to enter the United States and smuggle illicit drugs.” On Wednesday, a U.S.House of Representatives committee killed a proposal by U.S.Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, to bar the Trump administration from erecting border barriers in Big Bend National Park.The region is surrounded by rugged canyons and residents live mostly in isolation among desert plants and wildlife, including endangered species.Some residents can trace their family history to the founding of Redford in the 1870s.Others moved to the area more recently after experiencing its quietness and breathtaking views of the mountains.Some have started businesses catering to tourists such as renting river canoeing equipment or serving as river guides.Both old-timers and newcomers fear they would lose their way of life if the federal government seized their land for a border wall.The threat of losing their land has galvanized some landowners, who say they’re appalled that the government would forcefully seize land in a state that prides itself on defending private property rights.Some said that they feel powerless and lack the legal and financial resources to fight the federal government.“I don’t want a wall, but if they’re going to build it, how am I supposed to fight it?” said Adan Madrid, 65, a descendant of one of the founding families.In March, he received a CBP letter offering $2,500 for a right of passage on his farm that sits near the riverbank, or risk losing the whole property, including his home, through eminent domain.Other residents are trying to unite landowners to fight the Trump administration’s efforts, saying they won’t willingly give up land they’ve cultivated and handed down through generations for hundreds of years.“It’s just something that’s been happening for generations, people coming in and trying to take land and families fighting to keep it,” said Yolanda Alvarado, 38, who also received a CBP letter seeking access to her land in nearby Pilares.“But I think this generation is more vocal and able to fight back.We have access to more resources and unlike older generations there isn’t a language barrier.” “I just want to protect my dad’s land” Carrasco, who lives mostly in Odessa but frequently visits his ranch, said he signed off on allowing a surveyor on his property, hoping that he could get additional information about what the federal government wants to do on his property and whether he would be paid for it.He said he could use the money after an oil company he worked for declared bankruptcy and he lost $260,000 of his employer-sponsored 401K.Carrasco said he’s one of the few Trump-supporting Republicans in Presidio County, a Democratic stronghold sandwiched between Republican-leaning Jeff Davis and Brewster, the two other counties that make up the Big Bend region.He said he agreed with Trump that the Biden administration was to blame for hundreds of thousands of immigrants crossing the Texas-Mexico border.But he did not expect the Trump administration would target his land for border security infrastructure.He said he’s told CBP representatives that he doesn’t want a border wall because it would ruin his farm, cut off access to an irrigation pump that pushes Rio Grande water into his alfalfa farm and ruin the big sky mountain views he’s enjoyed his entire life.He said the contractors he’s spoken to have offered scant details on what they intend to build.“I want to come down here and die here in however many years I have left,” he said, taking a drag from his cigarette.“But now I have to deal with this.” Carrasco’s grandfather owned the ranch and gave parcels to Carrasco’s father, who eventually divided that land among Carrasco and his brothers and sisters.After Carrasco graduated from high school, he went to work in El Paso, nearly 300 miles upriver, before getting a job in the Odessa oil fields in the 1980s.As his brothers and sisters either passed aw