In 1933, Father Lourdes Costa had a vision for a cross on a mountaintop in southern New Mexico. Nine years later, Costa’s idea became reality. A 29-foot-tall limestone statue of Jesus Christ created by the sculptor Urbici Sole was installed at the top of Mount Cristo Rey, becoming a beacon for thousands of pilgrims every year, some who make the journey on their knees in prayer.
In 2026, desert terrain surrounding the holy site exploded. Contractors have already started to blast the mountain’s south side to prepare for a chunk of President Donald Trump’s long-promised border wall.
The government is seizing more than 14 acres of land owned by the Diocese of Las Cruces, including the land at the base of a holy site that’s now an active construction zone. In return, the government will give the diocese $183,071. Border Patrol said the area was getting a “face lift.”
The monument is now at the center of a months-long legal battle pitting the diocese against the federal government and Trump’s anti-immigration agenda. The Trump administration, according to the diocese, believes the “power of eminent domain overrides the right to free exercise of religion” enshrined by the First Amendment.
“The wall is a physical manifestation of this government’s attitude toward migrants,” the diocese wrote in court filings this summer. “Nothing could be less Catholic.”
The wall is “contrary to Catholic values and teachings and the Diocese’s sincerely held beliefs about the appropriate use of its land,” lawyers for the diocese wrote. “This affront to religious liberty cannot stand.”
The diocese has argued that the wall would effectively “desecrate” a holy site, but to Ruben Escandon, who has spent years cleaning graffiti and other damage to the statue, a wall might be the best way to protect it.
Escandon is a third-generation volunteer protecting the site with the Mount Cristo Rey Restoration Committee. “It was a legacy that was left to us,” he told The Independent.
He doesn’t believe a potential wall on the south side of the mountain would interfere with the monument or the trail surrounding it, but it would close off a 1.5-mile gap that has provided vandals and other criminals with “easy access” to chip the statue, throw bottles and candle wax, and tag the limestone with graffiti, according to Escandon.
“The church wants to continue the pilgrimages, and they want to promote this area, but people are scared because of the history of the robberies that were taking place, the assaults that were taking place, cars were getting broken into,” he told The Independent. “This has happened because of this gap in the fence. … They want to go up there to pray, pay their respects, and they can’t because of the fear of getting assaulted or robbed.”
The Trump administration intends to build a 30-foot “smart wall” with steel bollards spaced four inches apart along 1.4 miles of trail surrounding the mountain, with additional construction for drainage infrastructure and access roads.
The case is among several playing out in communities along the southern border, as the president’s government-wide anti-immigration agenda seeks to build on his first term’s attempts to construct a vast physical border wall — drawing legal challenges from environmental activists, Native American communities and other groups that have been tied up in litigation for months.
The Department of Homeland Security has invoked broad authority to build the wall and other barriers while awarding billions of dollars in contracts this year toward its construction.
In New Mexico, the Trump administration has invoked the Declaration of Taking Act, which allows the federal government to acquire private land for public use with “just compensation” for the landowners. The law, enacted nearly 100 years ago, allows the federal government to acquire private land for public use through eminent domain.
A spokesperson for Customs and Border Protection told The Independent that the agency’s “preference” is to obtain property “voluntarily” but retains the right to work with the Department of Justice “to acquire any necessary property interest(s) through eminent domain.”
“Smart wall construction in this area is located within 250 feet of the southern border, well south of the Mount Cristo Rey cross and access road,” a spokesperson for Homeland Security told The Independent.
“The cross is located approximately A QUARTER MILE, 1,300 to 1,400 feet, north of the border ON TOP OF THE MOUNTAIN,” the person said. “Access to the shrine will not be affected, as all attendees enter from the U.S. side. The only individuals who could POSSIBLY be impacted by the border wall are illegal aliens attempting to illegally enter our country.”
The diocese — represented by lawyers from the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy & Protection at Georgetown Law — argues that the attempted seizure of the Mount Cristo Rey footprint violates the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which blocks the government from interfering with religious practices.
The Justice Department has argued that the diocese’s religious freedom arguments are not “cognizable” as “a legal defense to condemnation actions.”
“The inescapable implication of the government’s position is that if Congress authorized the executive branch to bulldoze every Catholic church in the United States and replace them with parks, the religious rights of the faithful would have no role to play,” lawyers for the diocese wrote this week.
The Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the First Amendment “protect the right to free exercise of religion against all infringement by the government,” they said. “The Diocese’s religious rights are as ‘cognizable’ in a condemnation case as in any other.”
The primary hurdle for the diocese is proving that the loss of their property constitutes a “substantial burden” on religious practice, rather than just a loss of land, according to Vanderbilt University law professor Christopher Serkin, who studies eminent domain.
But the government’s argument that eminent domain actions “simply aren’t subject to the First Amendment or aren’t subject to [Religious Freedom Restoration Act] seems clearly wrong to me,” he told The Independent.
The diocese has argued that the wall will “deface” the mountain and “very likely will damage or restrict access to this sacred space and dilute the religious experience of visitors to the mountain,” lawyers for the diocese wrote this week.
The diocese fiercely opposed the proposal before the government’s lawsuit, which was filed in May. In public comments opposing the project, the diocese wrote that construction will “irreparably damage its religious and cultural sanctity, obstruct pilgrimage routes, and transfer sacred space into a symbol of division.”
“Any federal action to seize this land, construct physical barriers, or impede access to Mount Cristo Rey would constitute a significant infringement on religious freedom and the rights of worship, which are protected under both the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act,” the diocese warned.
“The erection of a symbol of division in the shadow of Christ runs contrary to the very person of Christ, who gathers people of all backgrounds and walks in unity and love to himself,” Rev. Peter Baldacchino, Bishop of Las Cruces, wrote in a letter to worshippers in June.
“This is not a matter of politics, but a matter of preserving and defending a sanctuary and devotion which has brought many people in our community to God,” he wrote. “The spiritual value of this site cannot be compromised by politics or financial gain.”
