Government Orders Nonprofit To Stop Building Border Wall Until An Agency Evaluates Its Plan
The U.S. government has ordered, through a cease and desist letter, a Houston-based nonprofit to stop clearing land for a border wall in the Rio Grande Valley. We Build the Wall Inc.’s project is on a 6,000-acre private property near Mission, Texas, but an agency responsible for upholding a treaty between the U.S. and Mexico needs to evaluate the construction plan before it can move forward.
Sandra Sanchez is a South Texas correspondent for the Border Report reporting project, and she says Border Patrol had already asked the group to stop before the International Boundary and Water Commission intervened with the letter. That agency determines whether border projects violate international water treaties. But it can’t determine that, in this case, until We Build the Wall submits its building plans.
We Build the Wall says it has the right to build on private land. But other groups say building a wall on a floodplain could cause environmental damage.
Sanchez says so far, the group has bulldozed land along the Rio Grande, but it hasn’t yet erected wall panels. She says it’s unclear how tall the wall would be.
Read more: https://www.texasstandard.org/stories/judge-orders-nonprofit-to-stop-building-border-wall-until-a-federal-agency-evaluates-its-plan/