In Ruidosa, Texas, volunteers are restoring El Corazón Sagrado de la Iglesia de Jesús, an adobe church with twin towers and a bronze bell that once united Mexican and American border communities. Built during the Mexican Revolution, the church served as a cultural hub for decades before drought and a dam displaced residents in the 1950s. The bell was saved by teacher Johnnie Tucker Chambers, who used it to call children and ranch hands across the border.

Now, President Trump's border wall construction threatens the fragile structure and dozens of other historical sites across the Chihuahuan Desert. In Texas, portions of a 1,000-year-old etching have been bulldozed, while work endangers ancient cave murals and landmarks on the Rio Grande. Historian Monica Muñoz Martinez warns that preserving physical markers validates a people's worth.

Administration officials say the wall will deter drug traffickers in this remote desert region, but preservationists fear construction vibrations will destroy the church's structural integrity. To border residents, the wall and mass deportation campaigns represent an erasure of centuries of Mexican and Latino American history.