The Trump administration has begun building the border wall through a west Texas section of the Big Bend region, marking the first major construction in an area of the U.S.-Mexico border where the administration's plans have faced strong opposition.

The commencement of construction constitutes a significant milestone in the administration's $46 billion initiative to line the border with walls, barriers, roads and technology, as it endeavors to fulfill a key campaign pledge made by President Donald Trump to complete the wall.

This development comes as Customs and Border Protection reports that it has doubled the pace at which it is constructing the wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Customs and Border Protection said in a statement to Reporters that “border wall panel installation is underway” in a 47-mile stretch of Hudspeth County in west Texas known as Big Bend 1.

Five project areas in total make up the roughly 500-mile Big Bend region, which stretches from an area of Hudspeth County south of El Paso to Lake Amistad.

The agency reported that the initial panels were erected on September 15.

On a map hosted on the agency’s website, where it publishes updates on wall construction along the entire southern border, a photograph depicted a crane hoisting one of the 30-foot-tall steel wall panels into position as construction workers looked on.

The new activity was separate from a border infrastructure project in the nearby Big Bend National Park, where the administration had temporarily suspended construction in an attempt to reach out to opponents.

In the wider Big Bend region of Texas, CBP has faced concerted opposition from landowners, environmental groups, business owners and ranchers, who argue that this remote area is not a high-traffic corridor for illegal immigration.

Activists affirmed on Friday that they would persist in their opposition to the border infrastructure projects throughout the remainder of the Big Bend region, even as the panels were in the process of being installed.

Clara Benson, one of the founders of the No Big Bend Wall Coalition, which has been fighting CBP's plans, said in an interview Friday that the organization had been receiving reports of trucks moving supplies into the remote area along the Rio Grande and that contractors had been clearing yards to stage supplies.

But speaking from Washington, D.C., where she and other coalition members were meeting with lawmakers, she said the organization and others would keep fighting the wall-building plans across the region.

“We shall persist in our struggle for this land irrespective of the outcome.

We shall continue fighting until the very end,” said Benson.

“You speak with people in west Texas and they will tell you that even if they erect it, we will fight for them to tear it down.

So this fight is far from over.”

This development comes as the administration accelerates its plan to line the entire border with a combination of 30-foot steel bollard walls, vehicle barriers, new patrol roads, and various technologies designed to deter and detect migrants or smugglers attempting to cross the border.

Customs and Border Protection stated that they are constructing an average of 12 miles of barriers per week along the 2,000-mile border with Mexico and had recently reached a milestone of 200 miles of new barriers erected since the second Trump administration assumed office.

The weekly average of 12 miles is twice the pace that Rodney Scott, the agency's head, cited earlier this year.

The agency has faced pushback from environmental groups, a small town worried that the wall will cause flooding in its area, Native Americans who say the construction is disturbing sacred sites, and landowners who say the construction will infringe on their land.

In Texas, much of the opposition has focused on the agency's plans for Big Bend National Park, located in the state's southwest along the Rio Grande and known as a draw for tourists from around the world.

But up and down the river outside the park, much of the land is owned by private landowners, many of whom have pushed back against the government's efforts.

Earlier this week, landowners, ranchers and business owners in the Big Bend region, along with a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting the region’s landscape and heritage, sued to stop the administration’s plans.

Activists and landowners have also turned up at county meetings to press their elected officials not to cooperate with contractors hired by CBP to build the wall, and many landowners have refused to let government officials or contractors onto their land to survey it.