Supreme Court Clears Way for Trump’s Border Wall in Big Bend

The Supreme Court on Monday cleared the way for the Trump administration to resume building border barriers and roads in the Big Bend region of West Texas while a lawsuit over the project continues.

In a short unsigned opinion, the justices paused an order by U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone that had halted construction, SCOTUSblog reported. Only Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said she would have denied the government’s request, without explaining why.

The court said the government is “exceedingly likely to prevail” on its argument that Cardone lacked the power to hear the challengers’ claim, which relied on the major questions doctrine. “There is no such thing as a ‘constitutional’ major-questions claim,” the justices wrote, per SCOTUSblog.

The ruling said Cardone’s order “impedes the Government from advancing its ‘compelling interests’ in border security and integrity,” CBS News reported. It added that Congress’s immigration law “reflects a clear preference for expeditious border construction over the very harms respondents assert.”

The justices also cited costs of nearly half a million dollars per day that the government said it was incurring while the work sat on hold, according to SCOTUSblog. They declined the administration’s request to reverse Cardone’s ruling outright.

The dispute centers on three waivers of environmental and conservation laws issued by then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in February and her successor, Markwayne Mullin, in May and July, NBC News reported. The government says the project would involve 341 miles of construction.

The administration says about 89,000 people have been detained trying to cross there in recent years, according to NBC. Challengers counter that the area has the lowest migrant apprehension rates anywhere along the southern border.

Solicitor General D. John Sauer warned that halting the project risked “creation of a massive vulnerability in border protection that risks funneling illegal entry and trafficking into the unsecured Big Bend Sector,” CBS reported.

The lawsuit was brought by the Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Ruidosa Church and Danny Miller, a river guide who owns property in the area. “The Trump administration and its contractors are hellbent on destroying one of America’s greatest national parks,” the center’s Laiken Jordahl said in a statement.

The group noted that the order is not a final ruling on whether the waivers are legal. It said the decision allows construction to resume in Big Bend National Park and along more than 500 miles of the Rio Grande.

The project drew pushback this summer from Republican and Democratic lawmakers, ranchers and local law enforcement in Texas after bulldozers arrived at the park, CBS News reported. Customs and Border Protection paused work inside the park through the end of September.

CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott has said the 30-foot wall itself will not cut through the national park, according to CBS, but more than 200 miles of patrol roads and about 17 miles of vehicle barriers would.

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