Border Wall Well Drilling Halted in Drought-Stricken NM

The Trump administration has ordered construction crews building the border wall to stop drilling new wells in drought-stricken New Mexico, after cattle ranchers warned that pumping groundwater needed to make concrete could threaten their livestock and livelihoods. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) confirmed the order on Monday, according to AP News.

The decision comes as crews across the southern border race to complete one of President Donald Trump’s highest domestic priorities — a barrier system spanning four states that has received over $46 billion in federal funding. The order reflects growing tensions between the administration’s border security ambitions and the environmental realities of an area already grappling with one of the worst droughts on record.

Ranchers Raise Alarm

Russell Johnson, a cattle rancher and former Border Patrol agent whose property runs along the border, raised the issue at a public meeting in July after noticing an industrial well on land he leases for grazing. Drilling crews told him the well would pump 300 gallons per minute — a stark contrast to the roughly 12 wells across his ranch, which pump between three and seven gallons per minute.

“These wells that they’re drilling for border wall construction, they’re talking about trying to attain 300-plus gallons a minute, and it’s going to pump us dry,” Johnson told WBUR’s Here and Now. “When you have livestock, you’ve got to water, they can’t wait. You can’t haul enough water to keep them in good supply, so it becomes an immediate disaster.”

Johnson, who also serves as president of the Luna County Farm and Livestock Bureau, has been forced to reduce his herd to one-third its original capacity due to the drought. More than 160 people attended the July meeting in Deming, New Mexico, to voice their concerns about the unpermitted drilling.

“Whatever they do on that well affects everybody in this basin,” one rancher said at the meeting, as reported by The Guardian.

Unpermitted Wells and Legal Dispute

The New Mexico Office of the State Engineer, which monitors and approves wells across the state, has counted eight wells drilled without the office’s permission along the southern border — though officials caution there could be more. Staff visited two wells in July and reported they were pumping 200 gallons per minute.

“All non-tribal wells in New Mexico, whether they are drilled on state or federal land, must have permits from the state engineer before they can be drilled or water can be pumped from them,” the Office of the State Engineer said in a statement.

The wells were all drilled on a federally owned strip of land 60 miles north of the border called the Roosevelt Reservation, created by the Roosevelt Act of 1907. In April, CBP sent a letter to the state engineer’s office asserting that the federal government is “immune” from state law requiring permits to pump groundwater — a claim the state strongly disputes.

“We do disagree with that,” said Nat Chakeres, general counsel for the state engineer. “In New Mexico and it’s the same in all Western states, it doesn’t matter really if you’re on federal land or land of other ownership. To drill water wells, you need permits from the state engineer.”

Notably, CBP applied for and received permits for border wall water drilling during Trump’s first term, when contractors purchased water from farms, ranches, and municipalities rather than drilling new wells. According to local reporting from the Deming Headlight, CBP directed the driller to withdraw their permit application this past winter “rather abruptly,” breaking with years of compliance with state law.

A Region Under Water Stress

The dispute unfolds against a backdrop of severe water scarcity. Groundwater makes up more than half of New Mexico’s total water supply, and 81% of public water systems rely on groundwater for drinking water. The state’s 50-Year Water Action Plan warns New Mexico will have 25% less water by 2050, and the Mimbres Basin near Deming is specifically identified as one of the areas reaching dangerously low groundwater levels.

A January 2026 report by the New Mexico Groundwater Alliance detailed significant data gaps in groundwater management, noting that less than half of all New Mexico’s groundwater withdrawals are metered today, according to the Environmental Defense Fund.

The situation echoes concerns from the first Trump administration, when ponds at the San Bernardino National Wildlife Refuge in Arizona dried up after crews pumped millions of gallons of groundwater to mix cement for the wall. As PBS NewsHour reported in 2020, contractors withdrew millions of gallons from a well 1.5 miles from the refuge, resulting in lower water levels and some empty ponds.

CBP’s Response and Next Steps

A CBP spokesperson said on Monday that border wall contractors in New Mexico have been instructed to stop drilling new wells, but did not comment on whether wells already drilled could be pumped. The agency said it would collaborate with New Mexico and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to develop a groundwater management strategy.

“CBP is committed to working collaboratively with local landowners to ensure that construction activities do not adversely impact their water needs,” read the agency’s statement.

The order has quickly become a political flashpoint in New Mexico’s 2nd Congressional District race. Republican congressional candidate Greg Cunningham announced the moratorium on social media Friday, saying, “Ranchers, families and local officials brought us their concerns. I raised it with the Trump Administration. They listened. They acted fast.” Democratic Congressman Gabe Vasquez, who faces Cunningham in November’s midterm elections, also claimed credit, stating, “This illegal drilling by this administration should never have happened, but when it did, I heard our ranchers’ concerns loud and clear and immediately raised hell in Washington to get the job done and protect New Mexicans’ water rights.”

What to Watch

The moratorium on new well drilling is a step forward for ranchers, but significant questions remain. CBP has not clarified whether existing wells can continue pumping, and the legal dispute over federal versus state authority over groundwater on federal land appears headed for the courts — a process that could take years. Meanwhile, the border wall project, officially designated as a “Smart Wall” in October 2025, continues to expand across the region, with a secondary barrier being built where a wall already exists.

For ranchers like Johnson, who supports border security but worries about his water supply, the fight is far from over. “They need to stop pumping all of these wells because they were all drilled illegally,” he said. As New Mexico’s drought deepens and the wall project pushes forward, the tension between national security priorities and the region’s fragile water resources is likely to intensify.