President Donald Trump was ready to break ground Monday morning on his long-promised Mexico border wall.
But a court ruling late Friday dealt the president another setback. A federal judge who last month blocked a pair of construction projects in Arizona and New Mexico added four more sites in Arizona and California. And the Oakland, California-based judge turned his temporary injunction into a permanent one.
The ruling is almost certain to be challenged by Trump. The administration quickly appealed Gilliam’s May order after the president took to Twitter to call it “a ruling against Border Security” by “another activist Obama appointed judge.” Friday’s ruling came hours after Justice Department lawyers told the judge that unless he intervened, the Department of Homeland Security planned to move ahead with construction on the four newer projects “as early as the morning of July 1.”
Gilliam agreed with the Sierra Club that Trump overstepped his authority by reprogramming federal funds without approval from Congress. But he also ruled because administration has yet to propose any projects beyond the six at issue in the lawsuit, a broader injunction barring border barrier projects altogether is unwarranted.
As he ruled in May, Gilliam again rejected the administration’s argument that the Defense Department “did not transfer funds for an item previously denied by Congress and that the transfer was for an ‘unforeseen’ requirement.”
Administration officials “again present no new evidence or argument for why the court should depart from its prior decision, and it will not,” the judge said in the 11-page order.
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