Trump administration faces lawsuits over $9B Texas border wall

A New York construction firm has sued the Trump administration in the Court of Federal Claims after federal officials awarded roughly $14 billion—about 73% of Texas wall contracts—to just two contractors, including Fisher Sand & Gravel. The dispute adds fresh

Tommy Fisher tried to build a piece of border wall in South Texas during the first Trump administration—and quickly watched the project get engulfed in controversy.

Experts raised concerns about what they said was shoddy construction and signs of erosion. Fisher’s company also drew scrutiny because it received funding from a group called We Build the Wall. a conservative nonprofit that included President Donald Trump’s then-political strategist Steve Bannon as a board member. Some leaders of the nonprofit later went to prison for their involvement. Even Trump himself publicly denounced the small section of wall—writing on X in 2020 that he “disagreed with doing this very small (tiny) section of wall. in a tricky area. by a private group which raised money by ads. ” and adding that it was “only done to make me look bad.”.

But controversy did not end the money. Fisher Sand & Gravel went on to receive subsequent border wall contracts, including from the state of Texas. Now the federal government has awarded his company over $9 billion to build even more border wall—tied to a $1.2 billion contract in Texas’ Big Bend region. where residents have continued to press for answers about plans in and around one of the country’s largest national parks.

Those decisions are now facing new legal challenge.

A New York-based construction company has sued the Trump administration after awarding the bulk of new Texas border wall contracts to Fisher Sand & Gravel and Barnard Construction. Posillico Civil Inc. filed its lawsuit in the Court of Federal Claims in Washington, D.C., on May 13. In the filing, Posillico says it is seeing procurement outcomes it believes should not have happened under the rules.

Posillico’s complaint points to a pipeline built around “prequalified vendors.” The company says that out of 11 prequalified vendors for the wall projects. U.S. Customs and Border Protection awarded nearly $14 billion—about 73% of the contracts’ value—to just two: Fisher’s firm and Barnard Construction. based in Montana. The work, Posillico alleges, includes wall projects around El Paso, Laredo, Del Rio, and the Rio Grande Valley.

The lawsuit also arrives amid heightened scrutiny of the Trump administration’s border wall contracting approach—particularly claims about no-bid awards and the lack of transparency around accelerated construction efforts tied to Trump’s campaign pledge of securing the border.

During Trump’s first term, those practices drew intense criticism. A 2020 investigation by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune found that the government was awarding contracts before acquiring titles to the land—something that. the investigation reported. led to millions of dollars in costs related to delays. A separate review of federal spending data described hundreds of contract modifications during that period. increasing the cost of the border wall project by billions.

The current push shows no slowdown. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security secured $46.5 billion to build the border wall in 2025 through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

Prequalification, some procurement experts say, can be a legitimate way to move faster. Charles Tiefer—a leading authority on federal contract law and a former member of the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan—said that while prequalifying contractors is not unusual. the system is not designed to eliminate competition.

DHS, Tiefer said, appears to be doing just that.

DHS “is picking contractors for loyalty and from confidence that they will do its bidding. rather than. as every other administration has done. picking contractors for best value. ” Tiefer said. referring to reporting that then-Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem awarded a $220 million ad campaign contract to a firm she had connections to. In response to ProPublica’s reporting. DHS said the department “has no involvement with the selection of subcontractors” and that it doesn’t control or weigh in on who contractors hire.

“They got huge blank checks, and they want to write them as fast as possible,” Tiefer said.

The White House declined to comment for this story. A U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesperson said in a written statement that the bidding process has been fair. “Contracts awarded are based on the contractor’s qualifications to perform the work in a timely manner and at prices deemed fair and reasonable. ” the spokesperson wrote. The spokesperson also said neither CBP nor DHS have an affiliation with We Build the Wall.

An attorney for Posillico declined to comment. The company previously built 43 miles of federal wall in South Texas and won a contract to construct sections of Gov. Greg Abbott’s state border project. That state effort, the lawsuit notes, saw delays and cost overruns similar to those that have haunted the federal program.

Posillico is arguing that it was shut out of real competition. In the lawsuit, the company alleges it incurred “substantial bid preparation and proposal costs” for federal solicitations that were “not genuine competitive opportunities.”

Scott Amey. a contracting expert and general counsel at the watchdog group Project on Government Oversight. said border wall contracts have long been controversial and tend to raise questions about what the government gets for the cost—as well as the political connections that sometimes shadow particular contractors.

“There’s a cost, and ethics and contracting questions that all come up whenever you mention anything with the border wall,” Amey said.

Representatives for Fisher Sand & Gravel and Barnard did not respond to requests for comment. Barnard has filed as an intervenor in the case—meaning it is not a party to the suit but wants to participate.

Even within the broader award, Fisher and Barnard dominate. Posillico says several other companies received smaller percentages of the contracts. including Spencer Construction LLC; Granite Construction Co.; and Southwest Valley Constructors. Southwest Valley Constructors recently won another $1.7 billion contract for barrier construction in and around Big Bend National Park. Representatives for the other companies did not respond to requests for comment.

Posillico’s allegations go beyond who got the contracts. The company claims that contract scopes expanded beyond what the government originally told bidders.

In the CBP Big Bend Sector project. for example. Posillico says contractors were ultimately required to install cattle fencing and cattle guards—an obligation the lawsuit contends was not part of the original ask. Had the government been clearer, the lawsuit argues, Posillico may have had a better chance of winning.

As part of the new scope of work, winning contractors—including Fisher Sand & Gravel—will also have to work with the International Boundary and Water Commission, the federal agency that administers treaties around the Rio Grande and the physical border with Mexico.

Fisher’s company has clashed with the commission before. In 2019, the commission filed a lawsuit claiming Fisher violated a binational water treaty between the U.S. and Mexico after the company constructed fencing in South Texas.

The investigation by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune found that a 3-mile stretch of border wall Fisher built on the banks of the Rio Grande was at risk of collapsing if not fixed. The investigation also reported that Fisher built a segment of border wall in Sunland Park. New Mexico. without following proper procedures. Both projects involved We Build the Wall.

In the end, the nonprofit’s top leaders—including Bannon—were arrested on fraud and other charges connected to the fundraising scheme. Three men, including an Air Force veteran, were convicted and sentenced to prison. Trump pardoned Bannon, who was awaiting trial.

In 2022, Fisher and the government reached a settlement in which Fisher Sand & Gravel agreed to conduct quarterly inspections, maintain an existing gate, and keep a $3 million bond for 15 years or until the property was transferred to the government to cover expenses if the structure failed.

On the ground in the Big Bend region, residents are still living with the uncertainty. Documents in Posillico’s lawsuit surfaced how CBP has flagged sections of wall in Hudspeth, Jeff Davis, and Presidio counties for “fast-track” construction by Fisher.

To support that work, a pecan farm near the small ranching community of Lobo began clearing a swath of land for a 500-person camp. The farm is petitioning the local water conservation district for approval to use agricultural well water for the project.

Another flashpoint is the lack of clarity about what kind of barriers are actually coming.

In the absence of publicly posted requests for proposals and direct communication from Washington. residents have relied on an online map posted by CBP that tracks contracts as they’re awarded. Over the past few months. lines on the map have shifted dramatically. prompting questions about what the government plans to build. The agency briefly took the map down altogether around the same time protests over the possibility of a physical wall in Big Bend National Park surged. When the map was restored. it appeared to show a mix of “vehicle barriers” and “patrol roads” planned instead of steel walls within park boundaries.

Fisher Sand & Gravel is currently slated to build a wall-related project in Big Bend Ranch State Park. bordering the national park to the west. though the company hasn’t publicly released details of what alternate border barriers might look like. Landowners in communities adjacent to the park are still preparing for potential eminent domain challenges from the federal government.

Underlying the legal dispute is a contracting system that critics say trades public scrutiny for speed.

Posillico’s lawsuit describes the procurement process as shaped by border-wide waivers from Noem. Those waivers, the filing says, applied to the entire southern border, covering all 1,954 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border for the first time in American history.

The lawsuit also states that Posillico did not contest using the waivers to expedite construction of the wall.

For border communities, however, the waivers have meant DHS has released very little information about the infrastructure coming to their areas.

This spring. the Center for Biological Diversity filed two lawsuits in federal court related to border wall construction in the Big Bend area—specifically over DHS’ failure to respond to a series of Freedom of Information Act requests for documents related to the project. and a challenge to the agency’s authority to waive laws without Congress’ approval. The government has not yet filed answers to the complaints. with a deadline of June 1 for the FOIA-related complaint and early June for the congressional authority lawsuit.

In the Posillico case itself, DHS moved to seal documents, including any depositions or affidavits, and Judge David A. Tapp signed off on the motion.

Amey said the overall pattern suggests the administration is trying to make exceptions function like the standard.

“It seems as if this administration, especially this time around, has decided that the rules don’t really apply,” he said.

Tiefer, describing how the government has moved contractors through a faster process, said the administration is acting as though transparency and competition can be sidelined.

The White House has not commented on the lawsuit. But in the Big Bend region, residents are still waiting on the kind of answers that would usually arrive with a procurement process they can see, read, and challenge.

The lawsuit doesn’t decide those questions on its own. Still. it places the procurement decisions—who got the money. what scope expanded. and how the public was left to piece together what’s happening—squarely in front of the federal court. while the federal border wall program continues to spend at a scale that has left communities demanding more than maps and silence.

Trump administration border wall contracts Fisher Sand & Gravel Barnard Construction Posillico Civil Inc U.S. Customs and Border Protection Court of Federal Claims Big Bend National Park One Big Beautiful Bill Act Kristi Noem We Build the Wall Steve Bannon Freedom of Information Act Project on Government Oversight Charles Tiefer