Soldiers have descended on this national park (here is why)
Big Bend National Park is normally a destination for those in search of desert scenery.
Positioned within the southwesternmost tip of Texas and a 5-hour power to the closest metropolis of El Paso, Big Bend National Park is never any longer the country's best-known nonetheless mute attracts a entire bunch of thousands of company for its barren set surroundings every 365 days — varied species of cacti that in some cases can grow to as much as 30 toes colossal to boot to a form of canyons and trails providing some distance-stretching views of nearby Mexico.
After recording a file 581,000 company in 2021, the National Park Service (NPS) reported over 512,000 coming to Big Bend in 2025.
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Since 118 miles within the park additionally passes across the U.S.-Mexico border, the home comprising Big Bend sees a portion of illegal border crossings, drug smuggling and human trafficking — one thing that the new President Donald Trump administration has targeted by sending 200 troops from the 4th Infantry Division in Colorado to Big Bend set in West Texas.
The local Marfa Public Radio used to be the first to narrative that over 300 troops from a form of battalions will additionally be deployed to the set within the arrival weeks.
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"We may no longer be actively on patrols," Main Jared Stefani, who is main the Big Bend home military battalion, told the Big Bend Sentinel wait on in March. "We'll be at detection and monitoring websites, to present that knowledge to Border Patrol, to then wander out and possess their law enforcement function."
Marfa Public Radio extra reported seeing Humvee miltiary autos and gasoline autos within the home of the park. Stefani earlier additionally acknowledged that the eight-wheeled Stryker autos outdated to switch via sophisticated terrains may also be sent to the Big Bend home. Shutterstock
Extra troops, armed forces autos to gain sent to Big Bend in coming weeks
"If the mission dictates for safety capabilities that we set our weapons techniques on those Strykers, then they'll be set on the Strykers," Stefani acknowledged on March 24.
All this comes amid Customs and Border Safety (CBP) recordsdata showing that the Big Bend home had the lowest illegal border encounters out of any crossing within the Southwest set in 2025 to this level — 4,921 when put next to 42,886 in San Diego and 36,092 in El Paso. Right here's in gigantic part because of the prolonged stretches of sophisticated terrain and rude temperatures that the park is assumed to attain.
Extra on national parks:
- Now is the time to put collectively for permits for standard national park exercise
- A couple of national parks warn of identical menace
- One amongst the biggest crimes committed in a national park is solved
In a extra assertion on the military's and the administration's plans for the Big Bend home, Military spokesperson Lt. Col. Sarah Ray acknowledged that the military used to be brooding about the usage of the small Marfa Municipal Airport (MRF) to home the troops being sent to the set though exact plans hold no longer yet been confirmed.
Positioned in southwestern Arizona, Saguaro National Park has within the last decade additionally earned a reputation as being on the route that some traffickers and folk engaging northward from Mexico resolve on to rob (it's why this national park periodically lands on lists because the country's most perilous); it has to this level no longer been targeted for identical armed forces missions by the recent administration.
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