When Tommy Fisher set out to build a section of border wall in South Texas during the first Trump administration, the project quickly became enmeshed in controversy. Experts have expressed concerns about shoddy construction and signs of erosion.
Beyond that, Fisher’s company had received funding from a group called We Build the Wall, an influential conservative nonprofit that included Steve Bannon, then a political strategist for President Donald Trump, as a board member. Some of its leaders eventually went to prison for their involvement in the business.
Even the president denounced the project.
“I did not agree with the construction of this very small (tiny) section of wall, in a delicate area, by a private group which raised funds through advertising,” Trump wrote about in response to reporting from ProPublica and The Texas Tribune in 2020 detailing the problems with the wall project.
“This was done purely to make me look bad,” the post continued.
But none of this stopped Fisher’s company from securing subsequent contracts for the border wall, including from the state of Texas. And now the federal government has given his company more than $9 billion to build even more border wall, including one $1.2 billion contract in the Big Bend region of Texas, where residents continued to press for answers on government plans in and around one of the country’s largest national parks.
And, as in Trump’s first term, Fisher’s work is once again stirring controversy. A New York-based construction company sued the Trump administration after it awarded the bulk of Texas’ new border wall contracts to Fisher Sand & Gravel, headquartered in North Dakota, and another company.
Posillico Civil Inc.’s lawsuit, filed in the Court of Federal Claims in Washington, D.C., on May 13, offers one of the first public glimpses into the government contracting process along the Texas border. The suit claims that of the 11 suppliers shortlisted for the wall projects, U.S. Customs and Border Protection awarded nearly $14 billion, or about 73 percent of the value of the contracts, to just two: the Fisher company and Barnard Construction, based in Montana. Work also includes wall projects around El Paso, Laredo, Del Rio and the Rio Grande Valley.
The Trump administration is under scrutiny for awarding contracts without competitive bidding and for a lack of transparency around its fast-tracked border wall construction plans, measures intended to help the president fulfill his key campaign promise to secure the border.
During his first term, Trump’s actions were also criticized. A 2020 investigation by ProPublica and the Tribune found that the government was awarding contracts before acquiring title, resulting in multimillion-dollar costs related to delays. A news agencies’ review of federal spending data also revealed how the first Trump administration made hundreds of changes to contracts, increasing the cost of the border wall project by billions.
The administration has shown no signs of slowing down: The U.S. Department of Homeland Security secured $46.5 billion to build the border wall in 2025, thanks to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Having pre-qualified contractors is not uncommon because the system is structured to help the government move faster on projects, but it is not intended to eliminate competition, said Charles Tiefer, a leading authority on federal contract law and a former member of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wartime Contracting Commission.
DHS “selects contractors based on loyalty and confidence that they will meet their expectations, rather than, as every other administration has done, choosing the best value for money contractors,” Tiefer said, referring to reports that then-Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem had awarded an award. $220 million advertising campaign deal to a company with which she had links. In response to ProPublica’s reporting, DHS said the department “is not involved in the selection of contractors” and does not control or influence the choice of contractors.
“They got huge blank checks and they want to write them as quickly as possible,” Tiefer said.
The White House declined to comment for this story. A CBP spokesperson said in a written statement that the bidding process was 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, saying neither CBP nor DHS has any affiliation with We Build the Wall.
An attorney for Posillico declined to comment. The company has already built 43 miles of federal wall in South Texas and has also won a contract to build sections of Gov. Greg Abbottthe proposed state border. The state project experienced many of the same construction delays and cost overruns like Trump’s border wall.
Posillico alleges in the lawsuit that it incurred “substantial bid and proposal preparation costs” by developing plans for federal bids that were “not meaningful competitive opportunities.”
Although these are just allegations, Scott Amey, a contracting expert and general counsel for the watchdog group Project on Government Oversight, said border wall contracts have long been controversial and raised questions about what the government was getting in return for that cost, as well as the political ties of some of the contractors. Amey closely followed the acquisition of the border wall during the first Trump administration.
“There is a cost, and questions of ethics and contracts that come up every time you mention anything regarding the border wall,” Amey said.
Representatives for Fisher Sand & Gravel and Barnard did not respond to requests for comment. Barnard has listed himself as an intervenor in the case, meaning he is not a party to the lawsuit but wants to participate.
Although the vast majority of the new funding went to Fisher and Barnard, several other companies were awarded smaller percentages of the contracts: Spencer Construction LLC; Granite Construction Company; and Southwest Valley Constructors, which recently won another $1.7 billion contract to build barriers in and around Big Bend National Park. Representatives for the other companies did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
Posillico’s suit claims the contracts awarded to the other companies went beyond the initial scope of wall construction work the federal government requested from bidders.
In CPB’s Big Bend sector project, for example, contractors ultimately had to install livestock fencing and livestock guards — something Posillico’s lawsuit claims was not what the government initially requested of potential contractors. If the government had been clearer about the scope of the project, the lawsuit claims, the company might have had a better chance of winning a contract.
As part of the new scope of work, successful contractors, including Fisher Sand & Gravel, will also be required 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 has clashed with the commission before. In 2019, the commission filed a lawsuit claiming that Fisher violated a binational water treaty between the United States and Mexico after the company built a fence in South Texas. The investigation by ProPublica and Tribune found that a 3-mile stretch of the border wall built by Fisher on the banks of the Rio Grande was at risk of collapsing if it is not repaired. The company also built a segment of border wall in Sunland Park, New Mexico, without following proper procedures. Both projects involved We Build the Wall, the nonprofit organization.
Ultimately, four of the nonprofit’s top leaders, including Bannon, were arrested for fraud and other charges related to the fundraising program. Three men, including an Air Force veteran, were convicted and sentenced to prison. Trump pardoned Bannon, who was awaiting trial.
Fisher and the government reached a settlement in 2022 in which Fisher Sand & Gravel agreed to conduct quarterly inspections, maintain an existing gate, and hold a $3 million bond for 15 years or until ownership is transferred to the government to cover expenses if the structure fails.
“The rules don’t really apply”
The Posillico trial offers a rare glimpse behind the veil into the expensive world of border wall construction, an industry that emerged over the past decade in response to Trump’s recurring campaign promise to build a wall.
The government procurement process has been particularly murky when it comes to border wall procurement, thanks to Noem waiving dozens of laws regulating financial transparency and competitiveness in government procurement for the entire southern border. This act marked the first time in American history that these waivers were applied to all 1,954 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border.
In his lawsuit, Posillico made clear that he did not contest the use of waivers to speed up construction of the wall.
For residents of border communities, the waivers mean that DHS has released very little information detailing the massive infrastructure projects that will be carried out in their communities. This spring, the Center for Biological Diversity filed two lawsuits in federal court over border wall construction in the Big Bend region, specifically over DHS’s failure to respond to a series of document requests related to the project under the Freedom of Information Act and to challenge the agency’s authority to waive laws without congressional approval. The government has not yet filed responses to the complaints, with the deadline set for June 1 for the FOIA complaint and early June for the lawsuit against the congressional authority.
In the Posil trial lico, DHS decided to seal case documents, including depositions or affidavits; Judge David A. Tapp signed the motion.
In the absence of publicly published RFPs and direct communication from Washington, residents of the Big Bend region have relied on an online map published by CBP which claims to monitor contracts as they are awarded. The lines on the map have has changed dramatically in recent months, raise questions on what the government is actually planning to build. The agency briefly removed the map, around the same time it protested the possibility of a physical wall in Big Bend National Park. reaches its climax. When the map was restored on the website, it appeared to show a mix of “vehicle barriers” and “patrol routes” planned in place of steel walls within the park boundaries.
Fisher Sand & Gravel is currently slated to build a proposed wall in Big Bend Ranch State Park, bordering the national park to the west, although it has not released any plans for what other border barriers might look like. Landowners in communities adjacent to the park are still preparing to face significant estate challenges from the federal government.
Barnard is working on a project outside of the parks. Posillico’s lawsuit documents revealed that CBP flagged sections of wall in Hudspeth, Jeff Davis and Presidio counties for “expedited” construction by the company. To support this work, a pecan farm near the small ranching community of Lobo began clearing a strip of land for a Camp of 500 people and request the local water conservation district to permit the use of agricultural well water for the project.
Amey, the contracting expert, said the Trump administration appears intent on making the exception the rule, given controversial practices such as Noem’s decision to award the massive advertising contract to the border and the government’s waiving of many contracting rules to speed up construction of the wall.
“It seems like this administration, especially this time, has decided that the rules don’t really apply,” he said.
