HIDALGO — The Homeland Security Department's decision last week to speed construction of a border wall in the lower Rio Grande Valley has inflamed local residents just as the midterm elections are in sight.

Politically, it cuts both ways. As U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke, the Democratic challenger to Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, stokes voter interest by reminding them about President Donald Trump's plans, Cruz is also using the issue to excite his base.

At the border, where gaps miles wide separate segments of wall that were constructed a decade ago — little of it as imposing as the barrier Trump envisions — some residents are angry that his administration decided to waive environmental and other regulations halfway through a two-month comment period.

Moving ahead without waiting for even two months of feedback suggests to wall critics that Homeland Security was only going through the motions in response to Trump's impatience.

U.S. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, a Democrat from McAllen, called the plan a "monumental waste of money."

"The Republicans love it. We look at it in terms of common sense: 'Does it work? Is it offensive to our friends and neighbors to the south?'" he said.

Cruz stands with the president in demanding a wall and mentions it regularly on the stump, as he did Saturday night in El Paso.

"We need to build a wall and we need to triple the Border Patrol to stop illegal immigration," he said.

Asked Saturday about the waiver, O'Rourke said in McAllen that "we do not need walls. We do not need to spend $30 billion to build a wall when we have the safest communities in the United States along the border."

To applause moments later, he told the crowd that Trump wants to turn the United States into "a nation of walls, 2,000 miles long, 30 feet high and a cost of $30 billion."

Worse, he said, the wall will "be built through the Santa Ana Wildlife Refuge. It'll be built through somebody's ranch, or farm or home, forcing this country to use its power of eminent domain to take its own citizens' property to construct a wall that by any measure we do not need."

A Quinnipiac University Poll released in August concluded that 51 percent of Texas voters opposed building a wall on the border with Mexico and 45 percent supported it. Opposition tends to run higher in the Valley, the most Democrat-dense region of Texas.

Weslaco resident Juan Gonzalez, 64, a chief financial officer for a health care company, figures that a third or more of border-area residents, Latino and Anglo alike, support building a wall.

"They're afraid of the bad guys that do come in. We do need better policies to control drugs," he said. He's not persuaded that a wall is the answer, though. "A lot of us don't like the idea."

"There's got to be a better way," said Edward de la Rosa, 45, a transportation worker who lives in Harlingen. If U.S. immigration policy made it easier to come for work and then return home, he said, pressure on the border would ease considerably.

And, he said, fears of drug dealers or violent gangs are vastly overblown in Washington. Hardly any border residents are engaged in illicit trafficking, and for the rest, security isn't a concern.

"We're not looking over our shoulder," de la Rosa said.

In August, the Government Accountability Office said in a report that homeland security officials hadn't determined whether a border wall would be the most cost-effective way to fight illegal immigration and drug smuggling. Critics have seized on the findings, arguing that Trump aides are more intent on placating him than on cost-effective — or even just effective — border security.

More wall plans

Last week, Homeland Security published a notice outlining plans for 17 miles of new border wall in Hidalgo County and announcing a decision to waive a number of regulations "to ensure the expeditious construction of barriers and roads."

The department also announced waivers to build gates and roads in nearby Cameron County.

The waivers would allow Homeland Security to more swiftly close gaps in the existing barrier, some about 8 miles wide.

"They've already decided what they want to do," Scott Nicol, co-chair of the Sierra Club Borderlands Campaign, said while showing a visitor the likely impact at the historic La Lomita Chapel. The city of Mission, 5 miles to the north, was named for the chapel, built in 1865.

On Sunday morning, candles burned at the altar and vases of fresh flowers sat at the feet of a statue of the Virgin Mary outside.

The chapel is on the river side of the levee and would likely be cut off when a wall is built.

Homeland Security officials, in announcing the waivers, offered assurance that they remain committed to environmental stewardship.

Said Nicol, "There's no evidence of that." Besides, he said, "You build walls, people build ladders. Walling off the Rio Grande Valley isn't going to do anything in terms of drug trafficking." Like other critics, he fears that a wall would only push desperate migrants to more remote parts of the border, where the risks of death are far higher.

"The only thing walls do is redirect traffic," he said.

1 / 4The historic La Lomita Mission in Mission, Texas, built in 1865, sits inside the Rio Grande flood plain in this photo taken Sunday Oct. 14, 2018. The Department of Homeland Security plans to build a border wall on the levee road behind the chapel, with 18 foot metal bollards rising above the current level of the road. Church leaders and local residents fear the chapel and its grounds will be cut off and unusable.(Todd J. Gillman / Dallas Morning News) 2 / 4A Border Patrol vehicle and agent (not photographed) guard the levee road and border wall in Hidalgo, Texas, on Sunday Oct. 14, 2018, less than a mile from the Rio Grande. The wall ends here and resumes about eight miles down river.(Todd J. Gillman / Dallas Morning News) 3 / 4Girls underwear left behind at the border wall in Hidalgo, Texas, on Sunday Oct. 14, 2018, less than a mile from the Rio Grande.(Todd J. Gillman / Dallas Morning News) 4 / 4Makeshift wooden ladders collected by the Border Patrol lay next to the border wall in Hidalgo, Texas, on Sunday Oct. 14, 2018, less than a mile from the Rio Grande.(Todd J. Gillman / Dallas Morning News)

Some 16 cities and all three counties in the lower Valley have adopted resolutions opposing expansion of the wall.

"It's stunning how fast this waiver takes effect," said Laiken Jordahl, the borderlands campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity, an advocacy group that plans to challenge it in court. "It's just so brazen.

"In Texas, where people cling to their property rights and cling to their guns, you would think this would be a wildly unpopular decision going into midterms to forcibly seize land from family farms and private property," he said. "It's interesting timing."

The proposal calls for adding a concrete wall to existing levees, then topping that with an 18-foot-high metal bollard.

A 150-foot zone on the river side of the levee would be cleared of vegetation. A road would be built for the Border Patrol.

The barrier would impact hundreds of private farms and wildlife habitats in the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge and National Butterfly Center.

State wildlife officials have warned that Bentsen-Rio Grande State Park in Mission could be cut off and forced to close. It's a favorite spot for bird-watchers and a gathering place for families.

Trump's impatience

Congress set aside $1.6 billion in March for wall construction and related security measures. Trump asked in August for $5 billion more for 2019.

On Friday, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. — the leading contender to succeed Speaker Paul Ryan if Republicans keep the House — introduced a bill that would provide $23.4 billion to build a border wall. Of that, $5.5 billion would be available right away. About a third would be set aside for technology, operations and infrastructure.

The funds would come from the existing Homeland Security budget.

Trump told Fox & Friends on Thursday that he is "not happy" with progress on building the wall. He vowed that Republicans will do "something very strong" after the midterms — assuming they still control Congress.

He had hoped to use a budget showdown last month to pry loose more funding for the wall. GOP leaders persuaded him to be patient to avert the risk of a government shutdown ahead of the elections.

A short-term spending deal with nothing for the wall expires Dec. 7.

Sen. John Cornyn, the Senate majority whip, called McCarthy's proposal "the opening salvo" for the next round.

"This is going to be a fight," Cornyn told Texas reporters last week. "There are those who will resist anything and everything associated with President Trump, including his proposals on border security. But I don't consider this to be optional."

He also defended the waivers.

"There are a lot of local and state rules and regulations and federal regulations that if they stayed in effect would delay indefinitely construction of this physical infrastructure, this fence or wall or whatever you want to call it," he said.

Even if expanding the existing 654 miles of border wall is a good idea, he added, the current plans don't focus on gaps known as transit points for drugs. And a wall, he said, requires more manpower and technology than Trump lets on. "It's not like you build it and get to walk away from it," he said.