On a cliff overlooking the Rio Grande, Dob Cunningham got out of his four-wheeler, walked across a patch of wildflowers poking out from the rocks and stopped at a small, rough concrete block adorned with horseshoes, spurs and a Masonic emblem. Under raised letters reading “DOB,” the year 1934 was carved into the concrete, with a blank space to the right.

It was Cunningham’s headstone.

“That way it’s done,” he said. “I didn’t want anyone to go and spend a bunch of money on it.”

Recently, President Donald Trump announced plans to extend the border wall from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico. If it is built, Trump's wall will have to cross miles of roadless mountains, traverse expansive deserts and parallel a serpentine river. But the biggest hurdle to building a coast-to-coast border barrier may not be the terrain but its inhabitants, especially those in Texas, where property rights are second to none.

Reshma Kirpalani/American-Statesman

Working as a farm hand in his youth, serving 30 years in the Border Patrol in his prime and tending to an 800-acre ranch with his wife, Kay, in his golden years, Cunningham has spent his whole life on the border, and he’s seen it change. Growing up, he would wade across the river to play baseball with kids in Mexico, and those who came north were polite. In recent years, he said, migrants have broken into his house, and drug smugglers traverse his property regularly.

Cunningham voted for Donald Trump — more importantly, he said, he voted “against Hillary” because he and Kay “didn’t want to see the country go socialism” — and agrees with the president’s desire to secure the border. But he opposes Trump’s plan to build a border wall from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico, saying it won’t work along the Rio Grande because of flooding. If the federal government tries to condemn part of his property to build the wall, Cunningham plans to fight as long as he can afford to.

On March 25, 2017, Charles "Dob" Cunningham and his wife Kay Cunningham, looked at photographs of immigrants from Mexico who tried to cross into Eagle Pass, Texas illegally, some with bags of drugs. If it is built, the biggest challenge for President Donald Trump's wall may be private land holders in Texas, including Charles "Dob" Cunningham, a former Border Patrol officer whose home is a quarter of a mile from the Rio Grande and who does not want the wall on his property. "We've lived here and we've raised a daughter here, and I've put a lot of sweat and blood in this place," said Cunningham about him and his wife, Kay Cunningham. "We don't want to just give it away."

Reshma Kirpalani/American-Statesman

On March 25, 2017, Charles "Dob" Cunningham and his wife Kay Cunningham, looked at photographs of immigrants from Mexico who tried to cross into Eagle Pass, Texas illegally, some with bags of drugs. Cunningham voted for Donald Trump and agrees with the president's desire to secure the border. But he opposes Trump's plan to build a border wall from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico, saying it won't work along the Rio Grande because of flooding.

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