President Donald Trump’s administration asked the US Supreme Court on Wednesday to let it proceed with a plan to build a US-Mexico border barrier in a remote region in West Texas that includes Big Bend National Park, according to Reuters.
The Justice Department filed an emergency request for the court to lift a federal judge’s order halting wall construction in the region while a lawsuit against the project brought by an environmental group and other challengers plays out.
Why the project is contested
The Republican president has long touted building or reinforcing barriers along the US-Mexico border as a signature part of his immigration policies. But his administration’s push to extend border infrastructure into the national park, around 250 miles southeast of El Paso, has faced opposition from local officials, conservationists and some Texas Republicans.
The lawsuit was brought by the Center for Biological Diversity, a Big Bend-area river guide and a group seeking to preserve a historic church in Ruidosa, Texas, that says its fragile adobe structure is threatened by the border construction.
The waivers at the heart of the case
The plaintiffs challenged a series of waivers issued by the US Department of Homeland Security to expedite construction of roads and barriers in the Big Bend region, avoiding the application of a variety of environmental and conservation laws.
Former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and the current Secretary Markwayne Mullin, who issued the waivers between February and July, found the region to be an “area of high illegal entry,” requiring additional barriers to control the border, according to Reuters. US District Judge Kathleen Cardone in El Paso issued an injunction on October 2 halting the construction, and found in an opinion issued later that the waivers exceeded the authority of Noem and Mullin. The Supreme Court has not yet ruled on the emergency request.
Border construction has been litigated for years, with courts repeatedly asked to balance executive authority, environmental law and the rights of landowners and communities near the border. The Big Bend case is distinctive because it involves a national park and a historic church, rather than a densely populated crossing point, and that has broadened the coalition opposed to it. Whatever the Supreme Court decides on the emergency request, the full lawsuit over the waivers will continue in the lower courts.
