Located in the southwesternmost tip of Texas and a five-hour drive to the nearest city of El Paso, Big Bend National Park is not the country’s best-known but still attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors for its desert scenery each year — various species of cacti that in some cases can grow to up to 30 feet tall as well as different canyons and trails offering far-stretching views of nearby Mexico.
After recording a record 581,000 visitors 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 also passes across the U.S.-Mexico border, the area comprising Big Bend sees a share of illegal border crossings, drug smuggling and human trafficking — something that the new President Donald Trump administration has targeted by sending 200 troops from the 4th Infantry Division in Colorado to Big Bend region in West Texas.
The local Marfa Public Radio was the first to report that over 300 troops from other battalions will also be deployed to the region in the coming weeks.
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“We will not be actively on patrols,” Major Jared Stefani, who is leading the Big Bend area army battalion, told the Big Bend Sentinel back in March. “We’ll be at detection and monitoring sites, to provide that information to Border Patrol, to then go out and do their law enforcement function.”
Marfa Public Radio further reported seeing Humvee miltiary vehicles and fuel trucks in the area of the park. Stefani earlier also said that the eight-wheeled Stryker vehicles used to move through difficult terrains could also be sent to the Big Bend area.
Big Bend National Park is located on the western tip of Texas and periodically sees illegal border crossings and drug smuggling despite its difficult terrain.
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More troops, military vehicles to get sent to Big Bend in coming weeks
“If the mission dictates for security purposes that we put our weapons systems on those Strykers, then they will be put on the Strykers,” Stefani said on March 24.
All this comes amid Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data showing that the Big Bend area had the lowest illegal border encounters out of any crossing in the Southwest region in 2025 so far — 4,921 compared to 42,886 in San Diego and 36,092 in El Paso. This is in large part due to the long stretches of difficult terrain and extreme temperatures that the park is known to reach.
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In a further statement on the army’s and the administration’s plans for the Big Bend area, Army spokesperson Lt. Col. Sarah Ray said that the army was considering using the small Marfa Municipal Airport (MRF) to house the troops being sent to the region although exact plans have not yet been confirmed.
Located in southwestern Arizona, Saguaro National Park has in the last decade also earned a reputation as being on the route that some traffickers and those moving northward from Mexico choose to take (it is why this national park periodically lands on lists as the country’s most dangerous); it has so far not been targeted for similar military missions by the current administration.
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