Trump administration asks Supreme Court to let Big Bend border barrier work restart after a judge's halt

The Trump administration filed an emergency appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday, asking the justices to let construction resume on a border barrier project through Texas' Big Bend region, The Texas Tribune reported.

A federal judge halted the work this month. On Oct. 2, Judge Kathleen Cardone ordered the government to stop building on the entire project, which spans about 500 miles, while lawsuits against it move through the courts. Her injunction covers Big Bend National Park as well as private and state-owned land upriver and downriver from the park.

In the Big Bend, the plan mixes walls and vehicle barriers with surveillance equipment. Congress set aside $46 billion for the Department of Homeland Security last summer to finish barriers along the southwest border, including 30-foot steel bollard walls, according to the Tribune.

The legal fight

At the center of the case are waivers from the homeland security secretary that allow U.S. Customs and Border Protection to set aside environmental and other rules that would otherwise slow a project of this size.

The government argues that the Big Bend sector sees high numbers of illegal crossings and that a 1996 law explicitly gives the secretary broad power to waive rules when putting up barriers or building roads along the border. It has also argued that if Big Bend is one of the few stretches left without barriers, illegal crossings could shift there.

Opponents, who include ranchers, business owners, residents and environmental groups, say Congress limited that waiver power to areas of "high illegal entry" and that the remote, rugged Big Bend does not qualify.

They call the project wasteful in a part of the border where illegal immigration has historically been low, warn it could damage the area's landscapes, and argue that drones or surveillance towers would work as well for far less.

Cardone sided with the opponents at this stage, writing that they are likely to win their argument that the Big Bend waivers went beyond the secretary's authority under the major questions doctrine.

Opposition in the region grew in August after bulldozers were seen clearing land inside Big Bend National Park, the Tribune reported.

Sources

The Texas Tribune