Which private contractors won major border wall construction contracts by 2025?
Executive summary
By mid‑2025 several large private contractors had won U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) construction awards: Granite Construction received a $70.3 million contract for ~7 miles in Hidalgo County, Texas (Mar 15, 2025) [1] [2] [3], and Fisher Sand & Gravel was awarded a $309.463 million contract for ~27 miles in Santa Cruz County, Arizona (Jun 18, 2025) [4] [5]. CBP later reported a separate round of ten awards in September 2025 totaling about $4.5 billion, including large joint‑venture awards such as BCCG for Tucson and El Paso projects [6] [7].
1. Who won the first jobs under “Trump 2.0” — names and dollar figures
The first publicly announced award in President Trump’s second term went to Granite Construction Co., a Watsonville, California firm, for $70,285,846 to build roughly seven miles of border barrier in Hidalgo County, Texas; CBP described it as the “first border wall contract of President Trump’s second term” [1] [2] [3]. A larger award followed when CBP announced Fisher Sand & Gravel Co. won a $309,463,000 contract to construct roughly 27 miles of wall in Santa Cruz County, Arizona [4] [5].
2. Big batches and later multi‑billion‑dollar awards
CBP signaled a major acceleration later in 2025: the agency reported that in September it awarded 10 construction contracts totaling approximately $4.5 billion to build hundreds of miles of the “Smart Wall,” with named awards including BCCG (a joint venture) for projects such as Tucson 1 ($606,988,300) and El Paso 3 ($850,361,073) [6] [7]. Those September awards are the first large tranche tied to the administration’s new funding push, according to CBP [6].
3. What “Smart Wall” work entails and which contractors fit the profile
CBP describes the Smart Wall as a systems approach: steel barriers plus roads, lighting, cameras and detection technology, rather than simple fencing. The September 2025 contract descriptions show awards combining barrier panels, access roads, and “system attributes” that include technology deployments, reflecting CBP’s stated program scope [6] [8].
4. How contracting was organized — shortlisted firms, joint ventures, and bidding rules
Earlier planning had produced a shortlist of about a dozen contractors eligible to bid on multi‑billion packages, and CBP used design‑build and design‑bid‑build authorities on these projects [9] [10]. Construction firms have both bid individually (Granite, Fisher) and competed as or joined in larger joint ventures (BCCG) to capture higher‑value corridor contracts [6] [9].
5. Geographic footprint and scale reported by agencies
CBP’s Smart Wall map and agency releases indicate projects across multiple Border Patrol sectors — Tucson, El Paso, Rio Grande Valley, San Diego — and CBP has reported hundreds of miles of planned construction tied to those awards [6] [8]. Separately, state efforts (Texas Facilities Commission) reported dozens of miles completed in Texas and the potential to build more with state and donated funds [11].
6. Political and legal context that shaped who got contracts
CBP framed early 2025 awards as using FY‑2021 appropriations to “close critical openings” left from cancelled contracts during the prior administration, and the agency used statutory waivers in some areas to speed starts [1] [3]. These policy choices influenced which projects moved first and which contractors were selected, per agency statements [1] [3].
7. Competing perspectives and reporting limitations
Government releases list winners and dollar amounts (CBP news releases and the Smart Wall map) and industry outlets reported firm names and project values [4] [6] [1] [5] [3]. Independent reporting raising broader political, environmental, or community concerns appears in other outlets, but the supplied sources do not provide a comprehensive list of every contractor that had won “major” contracts by 2025; available sources do not mention a definitive, single roster of all major winners beyond the specific awards cited here [9] [6] [1] [4].
8. Bottom line for readers
By mid‑2025, Granite Construction and Fisher Sand & Gravel were the most prominent named private winners of early Trump‑administration border wall contracts ($70.3M and $309.5M respectively), and CBP later reported a roughly $4.5B set of September 2025 awards that included large joint ventures such as BCCG [1] [4] [6]. For a full roster of every contractor and award amount, CBP’s Smart Wall map and its news releases list project‑level winners and remain the primary sources of record [8] [6].