(TEXAS TRIBUNE) - WASHINGTON - A proposal to bar the Trump administration from building a border wall in Big Bend National Park died Wednesday in the U.S. House Appropriations Committee, after the GOP-controlled panel rejected the idea along party lines.

The measure, proposed by Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, would have prevented the Department of Homeland Security's budget from being used to construct barriers within the park, as the administration has laid the groundwork to do so after waffling over the idea for months.

Local residents, ranchers and environmentalists in the Big Bend area and across the state have expressed fierce opposition, holding bipartisan rallies in Texas and Washington to press the case that the wild and remote landscape, beloved by Texans and rarely traversed by migrants, should not be sullied by metal bollards.