Something happened this week that has never happened before in American history. The federal government waived dozens of environmental laws inside a national park. Not near a national park. Not adjacent to one. Inside one.

Big Bend National Park spans more than 800,000 acres of Chihuahuan Desert, rugged mountains, and the Rio Grande river corridor in southwest Texas. More than half a million people visit it every year. Its southern boundary forms over 100 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border. The Department of Homeland Security has now waived the National Park Service Organic Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, and dozens of other laws to build steel vehicle barriers, patrol roads, lighting, cameras, and sensors through the heart of it.

The administration has already awarded two contracts for this work totaling $4.3 billion. Customs and Border Protection has refused to release its construction plans to the public. The Center for Biological Diversity had to sue under the Freedom of Information Act just to find out what is being planned.

Here is what makes this impossible to justify on its own terms: the Big Bend sector accounts for 1.3% of total border apprehensions nationwide. Migrant crossings along the southern border have already fallen to historic lows. This is $4.3 billion to militarize one of America's most treasured landscapes for a stretch of border that represents a fraction of one percent of enforcement activity.

Seven former superintendents of Big Bend National Park wrote to DHS urging it not to proceed. More than 130 organizations, outfitters, and rural Texas businesses asked Congress to block the funding. The people who know this land best, who have spent their lives protecting it or building livelihoods around it, are unified in opposition.

"The only people benefiting from this destruction are the billionaire contractors set to pad their pockets while paving over our natural heritage," said Laiken Jordahl of the Center for Biological Diversity.

We are calling on Congress to do two things. First: block federal funding for border wall construction inside Big Bend National Park and the Wild and Scenic Rio Grande corridor. Second: pass legislation that permanently prohibits any administration from waiving the National Park Service Organic Act inside a designated national park. What is happening at Big Bend cannot be allowed to become a template.

National parks belong to everyone. Sign to demand Congress protect Big Bend.