Supreme Court Allows Trump Border Wall Construction in Big Bend

The US Supreme Court cleared the way for the Trump administration to continue border wall construction in the Big Bend region of Texas, including parts of Big Bend National Park, The Guardian reported.

In an unsigned, five-page ruling on an emergency request, the nation’s highest court suspended a lower court order that had temporarily halted the project in October. Liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented from the ruling.

The plaintiffs in the case include the Center for Biological Diversity, a Big Bend river guide, and a church preservation group. They argued that construction would permanently damage the protected river corridor and wildlife.

Supreme Court allows Trump administration to resume building border wall in Texas’s Big Bend

However, the justices wrote that Congress enacted immigration law allowing the secretary of homeland security to waive environmental and conservation protections. That legislation reflects a clear preference for expeditious border construction over aesthetic, recreational, and environmental harms.

Congress’s enactment of immigration law – which permits the secretary to waive the requirements of environmental-protection and other conservation laws – reflects a clear preference for expeditious border construction over the very harms respondents assert, the justices wrote.

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The Trump administration plans to build more than 300 miles of six-foot-tall vehicle barriers and supporting roads. The project relies on a 1996 law authorizing the homeland security secretary to waive legal requirements in high-crossing areas.

According to Rodney Scott, the Customs and Border Protection commissioner, the wall is being built at about 12 miles a week and is expected to be completed by the end of Trump’s second term. CBP has awarded five contracts worth more than $6bn for border security upgrades in the region, featuring 30-foot steel fencing, vehicle barriers, and surveillance technology.

The Center for Biological Diversity condemned the decision.

This horrific decision clears the way for contractors to bulldoze pristine desert and dynamite canyon walls before the courts have even decided whether this destruction is legal, the center said in a statement.