VICTORY: Supreme Court Rules Trump Can Use Military Funds to Build Border Wall
Tom Pappert
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President Donald Trump has been given the green light by the Supreme Court to use military funding to build the United States-Mexico border wall along the southern border.
In what President Trump describes as a “win” for both border security and the rule of law in the United States, the Supreme Court has sided against a lower court and with the administration in their decision to allow military funding to be used to build the famous border wall.
The administration had asked the justices earlier this month to temporarily pause lower court rulings that blocked officials from tapping some of the diverted Pentagon dollars for border wall construction.
Solicitor General Noel Francisco argued that the needs of the administration outweighed those of groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and Sierra Club who are challenging the use of the Defense Department funds for the wall. And he said that if the funds remain frozen until the end of the fiscal year, authorities may not be able to use them at all.
U.S. District Judge Haywood Gilliam in California, an Obama appointee, issued a permanent injunction blocking officials from utilizing $2.5 billion of the roughly $6 billion in diverted military dollars, siding with the groups’ arguments that building the wall would cause “irreparable harm” to their interests at the border.
Still, four of the court’s liberal judges dissented against the majority’s decision, showing the importance of President Trump’s election. Without Supreme Court Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch, it is likely the border wall funding would remain locked behind congressional approval.
The application for stay presented to JUSTICE KAGAN and by her referred to the Court is granted. Among the reasons is that the Government has made a sufficient showing at this stage that the plaintiffs have no cause of action to obtain review of the Acting Secretary’s compliance with Section 8005. The District Court’s June 28, 2019 order granting a permanent injunction is stayed pending disposition of the Government’s appeal in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and disposition of the Government’s petition for a writ of certiorari, if such writ is timely sought.Should the petition for a writ of certiorari be denied, this stay shall terminate automatically. In the event the petition for a writ of certiorari is granted, the stay shall terminate when the Court enters its judgment.
JUSTICE GINSBURG, JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR, and JUSTICE KAGAN would deny the application. JUSTICE BREYER, concurring in part and dissenting inpart from grant of stay.
President Trump is celebrating the victory on Twitter, writing that “The United States Supreme Court overturns lower court injunction, allows Southern Border Wall to proceed.” The president added, “Big WIN for Border Security and the Rule of Law!”
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1154883345546928128
Even without congressional approval and with lower courts stymieing progress, President Trump has still managed to build hundreds of miles of border wall. The president said last month that over 400 miles of wall would be completed by 2021.
While being interviewed by phone on Fox News’ morning show “Fox & Friends”, President Trump revealed that his administration will have completed more than 400 miles of border wall by the end of 2020, despite tremendous opposition from Democrats and obstructionists.
“So the wall is going up, it’s going up rapidly, we’re going to have over 400 miles of wall built by the end of next year,” said President Trump. “Tbe wall is very important. It’s hard to breach it, it’s high, it’s strong, it’s powerful, and it’s going up at a much lower cost than the wall that was planned prior to me getting there.”
President Trump also remarked on the state of the previous border barrier the Obama and Bush administrations were building prior to his election.
At this point it seems as though the completion of the border wall is all but certain.
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