U.S. Customs and Border Protection awarded Barnard Construction a $1.6 billion no-bid border-wall contract citing urgency

On April 24, 2026, U.S. Customs and Border Protection awarded Barnard Construction Company, Inc. of Bozeman, Montana, a delivery order worth about $1.59 billion to build roughly 112.5 miles of "secondary" border wall in the El Paso Sector, which spans West Texas and eastern New Mexico. Federal contracting records show the award drew a single offer and was made under an "urgency" exception to full and open competition (FAR 6.302-2), with cost and pricing data recorded as "not obtained — waived." Barnard is chaired by Tim Barnard, who with his wife has donated more than $1 million to Donald Trump's presidential campaigns.

A High Country News investigation reported that the delivery order was the largest single award in a wave of border-wall spending directing more than $5.6 billion to Barnard since 2025, and that CBP promised roughly 73 percent of the value of new Texas and New Mexico wall contracts to just two of eleven pre-approved vendors. The Department of Homeland Security waived dozens of federal contracting and environmental laws to expedite construction. Government-contracting specialists cited by the investigation called the scale and process red flags given the firm's political donations.

Updates

2026-05-13 — Contractor Posillico Civil sued CBP over the wall-contract process [4, 5]

New York-based contractor Posillico Civil, Inc. sued CBP in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, arguing the contracting process lacked genuine competitive opportunities and alleging that CBP kept no price-comparison analysis or documentation of its methodology for awarding the contracts.