US Supreme Court allows border wall in Big Bend National Park to proceed

The United States Supreme Court has allowed President Donald Trump’s administration to build a border wall through a remote section of Big Bend National Park in West Texas. The injunction, it said, “impedes the Government from advancing its ‘compelling interests’ in border security and integrity”. The border wall has long been a signature part of Trump’s platform to restrict immigration into the US. During his first successful bid for the presidency in 2016, for instance, he rallied supporters with chants of “Build the wall!” But the push to expand the border barrier through the popular national park has met pushback from conservationists, local officials and some members of Trump’s own Republican Party. The Trump administration, however, has depicted the project as an urgent priority for national security and immigration control. It has described the Big Bend area as an artery for irregular border crossings and drug trafficking. US District Judge Kathleen Cardone blocked the construction in October, noting that while the Big Bend sector makes up more than 25 percent of the US-Mexico border, it accounts for only 0.3 to 2.2 percent of migrant apprehensions. “Therefore, if the Big Bend Sector is an area of high illegal entry, so is every other sector, and the waiver authority would apply to the entire US-Mexico border,” Cardone wrote. The Supreme Court, however, said the government was “exceedingly likely to prevail” on its argument that Cardone lacked jurisdiction under the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, which limits the ability of lower courts to rule on border barriers. The Supreme Court found that the challengers’ claim did not qualify, writing that “there is no such thing as a ‘constitutional’ major-questions claim”. The lawsuit challenged waivers used by the agency to fast-track border construction and sidestep environmental and conservation laws.