WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court cleared the way Monday for the Trump administration to resume border wall construction in the Big Bend region of Texas, a blow to bipartisan opponents who had argued the project is a waste of money that threatens the unique landscape.
The border wall is a signature project of President Donald Trump, who has long vowed to build a wall from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico.
Landowners and business owners in the Big Bend region, environmentalists and others who’ve opposed the construction project were bitterly disappointed with the court’s 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," said Laiken Jordahl, national public lands advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the groups that sued to stop the construction. “They’re signing off on the permanent destruction of the wildest place in Texas, and the theft of a great American river from all of us.”
Republicans in Congress last summer funded the project with $46 billion, and Customs and Border Protection has been rapidly erecting 12 miles of barriers a week across the entire border with a goal of eventually covering the entire 2,000-mile border with a mixture of 30-foot-tall steel walls, vehicle barriers and surveillance technology designed to stop illegal immigration and smuggling.
The government has pushed forward by issuing sweeping waivers to bypass regulations. Those rules are aimed at protecting the environment, but have historically slowed down major construction projects.
Big Bend residents of both parties oppose the project
In Texas’s Big Bend region, bipartisan opposition has rallied to fight back against the project, which would include 30-foot-tall steel walls in some areas as well as vehicle barriers and new roads.
They’ve argued that the barriers are a waste of money that threaten the local economy and lifestyle in an area of historically low illegal immigration. They say the job could be better done using only surveillance technology like drones.
A judge in Texas sided with opponents, finding that Congress likely had not clearly authorized such broad waivers for an area with the southern border’s lowest rate of migrant apprehensions. She ordered an immediate stop to all construction-related activity in the area, which includes Big Bend National Park as well as land up and down river in state and private hands.
The Trump administration filed an emergency appeal, saying there are illegal border crossings and drug seizures in Big Bend. More traffic could also be funneled there if there’s a gap in the wall, federal attorneys argued.
Customs and Border Protection head Rodney Scott said in an interview with The Associated Press that if the Big Bend area were left without a wall or other border infrastructure while other areas along the border get those fortifications, he's convinced it would be swiftly overrun by cartels.
The Supreme Court agreed that the law sharply limits judges’ powers to intervene when the federal government decides speedy border barrier construction is necessary. The majority paused the lower court decision as the case plays out. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented.
CBP did not immediately respond to questions about how swiftly construction could restart. The agency started building an initial section of border wall in one area of the roughly 500-mile stretch that makes up the Big Bend region, but that was stopped with the judge's order.
Construction activity in national park sparked outrage
The agency has encountered intense opposition from landowners up and down the region when it comes to getting permissions to enter their land to survey and build.
The Center for Biological Diversity sued over the construction, along with Friends of the Ruidosa Church and a river guide in the Big Bend area. Jordahl said it was the first time the government had waived a broad set of environmental laws inside a national park.
David Keller lives in the Big Bend region, is a member of the board of Conserve Big Bend and is a plaintiff in a separate lawsuit of landowners opposing the border wall projects.
He called the court’s decision devastating: “Everything is on the line again.”
Keller called the border infrastructure projects the “industrialization of one of the last best open undeveloped wild places in the lower 48 states.”
“We can’t afford to lose any more. Not an ounce. Not an acre,” he said. “We need wild country to be who we are, to be fully human, to be American I would say.”
The projects have drawn criticism from both Democrats and Republicans, including outgoing Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, who wrote an op-ed arguing against the project published Monday in the San Antonio Express-News hours before the court's decision.
“A combination of modern technology, adequate staffing, and meaningful cooperation with local officials and landowners offers a more sensible and effective path forward than indiscriminate construction of unnecessary barriers,” Cornyn wrote.
The government in August paused construction activity in Big Bend National Park that sparked outrage when bulldozers were spotted breaking ground in the park.
The government has repeatedly said no steel walls are planned for the national park. Initial plans included a new road as well as some vehicle barriers in the park. CBP has said in court filings that it will come forward with a finalized plan for what it intends to build in the national park but so far hasn’t done so while the case was at the Supreme Court.
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