Like "pissing in the wind": Local concerns bulldozed by Trump's border wall plan (axios.com)

The Trump administration has a blunt message for state and local officials trying to prevent construction of a wall and other security measures along the 2,000-mile southern border: Resistance is futile. Driving the news: President Trump's envoys recently met privately with officials from Texas border counties where residents have pushed back against construction, saying the plans are unnecessary in rugged landscapes with few immigrant crossings and that they'd harm the environment. The officials were told bluntly at the closed-door meeting with Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Rodney Scott that there would be no negotiating. The government is now pushing ahead with plans to build hundreds more miles of the 30-foot, steel barrier in most counties, and says there will be vehicle barriers and other construction in the Big Bend state and national parks. "It is like my dad would say, it's sort of like pissing in the wind. You just, you know, it just ain't right, folks. This is completely asinine," Val Verde County Judge Lewis Owens said in a video statement about the meeting with the federal officials. Zoom in: Scott told local officials that wall construction along a more than 200-mile stretch from Hudspeth County to Presidio County was "not negotiable" without giving a reason, Brewster County Sheriff Ronny Dodson, who was at the meeting, told Axios. County sheriffs and judges, the top elected officials in rural Texas counties, have been the only ones invited to make their case to Scott while he temporarily paused construction. Private landowners, ranch owners and eco-tourism business owners who will be impacted by any construction weren't invited to the meeting. "The people making the decisions above Commissioner Scott, they've never been down here," Owens said. "They don't know what the hell this place looks like, but yet you're making decisions on what's going to affect us that live here." At the meeting , Scott acknowledged a lack of transparency by the federal government on construction plans so far, Dodson said. "They just paused for a couple of weeks and we are where we were before," said Susan Hays, who's running for a Presidio County commissioner's seat. She wasn't invited to the meeting but was given details by the county judge. The latest: A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order pausing construction over the roughly 600 miles of border, but that order lasts only through the end of this month. Significant construction on private land is likely to be delayed — for now, at least. Only about 20 % of landowners in Presidio County, west of the state park, have signed away land access to the feds, while only about 31 % of landowners east of the park have, Deirdre Hisler, a Presidio County commissioner, told Axios. U.S. officials have made clear that landowners who don't comply risk an eminent domain lawsuit over their property. What they're saying: " We are currently evaluating technology options to meet President Trump's