Sponsors (9)
The bill prioritizes stronger border operations, clearer interagency authorities, and improved emergency response on federal lands near the border, but does so by expanding roads, surveillance, and enforcement powers in sensitive public and tribal lands — increasing environmental damage, taxpayer costs, civil‑liberties and humanitarian risks, and reducing some avenues for oversight and public input.
Residents of border communities, federal law enforcement, and Border Patrol will gain stronger operational capability — more roads, detection infrastructure, patrol authority, and coordinated agreements — enabling faster interdiction, surveillance, and day-to-day border operations on adjacent federal lands.
People living in or visiting remote border and rural areas (and emergency responders) will get faster search-and-rescue, wildfire response, and lower local fuel-driven fire risk from improved access, fuel treatments, and related coordination.
Federal agencies and local partners will have clearer legal definitions, assigned responsibilities, and required interagency agreements (including a defined 'covered Federal land' and a 100-mile operational rule), reducing some interagency delays and clarifying who can install and maintain border infrastructure.
Residents, recreationists, and ecosystems on federal border and wilderness lands face increased environmental damage — road and infrastructure construction, motorized access, aircraft operations, and habitat disruption that reduce recreational access and harm wildlife and wilderness character.
People who live, work, or recreate near federal lands — and immigrants in those areas — will see increased DHS and law-enforcement presence, surveillance, and interdiction activities, raising privacy and civil‑liberties concerns and increasing encounters that can lead to detention or removal.
Taxpayers, local governments, and federal agencies may shoulder substantial new costs — constructing and maintaining roads, detection systems, tactical infrastructure, aircraft operations, and additional administrative burdens — and resources may be diverted from conservation, recreation, or other land-management priorities.
Based on analysis of 11 sections of legislative text.
Expands DHS access and border-control activities on federal lands near U.S. borders, requires roads, surveillance, fuels management, inventories, and bans federal housing of undocumented people on those lands.
Introduced October 2, 2025 by Mike Lee · Last progress October 2, 2025
Prohibits Federal funds and federal land managers from providing housing to people in the U.S. without lawful immigration status on federally managed border lands (except for detention facilities) and requires expanded border-control activity on those lands. It directs the Departments of the Interior and Agriculture to build and maintain roads, install surveillance and other “tactical infrastructure,” carry out fuels-management work, inventory damage and unauthorized trails, and allow Department of Homeland Security (DHS) broad operational access — including inside some wilderness areas — to deter and respond to illegal cross-border activity. The bill also requires multiple reports and inventories (many with 1–2 year deadlines) documenting environmental damage, fires, visitor impacts, and resource needs, and it obligates cooperative agreements between land-managing agencies and DHS to implement road, surveillance, and fuels-management work.