President Trump’s attempt to protect our Southern Border has been attacked relentlessly over the last 3 years.
But the President’s administration received some good news today regardng of the construction of part of it.
Reuters reports:
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a challenge by four environmental groups to the authority of President Donald Trump’s administration to build his promised wall along the border with Mexico.
The justices turned away an appeal by the groups of a federal judge’s ruling that rejected their claims that the administration had unlawfully undertaken border wall projects in Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas harmful to plant and animal life. The groups had argued that the 1996 law under which the administration is building the wall gave too much power to the executive branch in violation of the U.S. Constitution.
The groups that sued are the Center for Biological Diversity, the Animal Legal Defense Fund, Defenders of Wildlife and the Southwest Environmental Center. They said the wall construction efforts would harm plants, wildlife habitats and endangered species including the jaguar, Mexican gray wolf and bighorn sheep.
So now an environmental group is concerned about executive overreach??
They should be more concerned with negative effects of polution left behind by so many thousands of people leaving trash all along their journey.
CNN has more, including a response by the group who attempted to end the construction of this stretch of wall:
"We're disappointed that the Supreme Court won't consider the Trump administration's flagrant abuse of the law to fast-track border wall construction," said Jean Su, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. "This administration has made a mockery of the Constitution to build an enormously destructive wall. We'll continue to fight these illegal waivers and do everything possible to prevent further damage to the beautiful borderlands."
Jason Rylander, senior endangered species counsel at Defenders of Wildlife, one of the other groups that brought the challenge, said they are "disappointed" in Monday's decision.
"We had hoped that this would be the time that the court would take up the serious Constitutional issues surrounding this administration's waiver of environmental law to expedite construction of the border wall. It's unfortunate that they did not, but we believe that there continue to be serious issues," he said, adding this is the "end of the line" for this particular challenge.
Last week, a federal appeals court ruled that the administration doesn't have the authority to divert Pentagon funds to construct additional barriers on the southwest border.
In a 2-1 ruling, the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals said that the transfer of $2.5 billion circumvented Congress, which holds the authority to appropriate money. While the ruling was a win for the environmental groups and states challenging the use of military funds, a Supreme Court stay, issued last year that allows the funds to be used, remains in effect for the time being.
The question at the core of the suit that the Supreme Court rejected Monday is whether the authority granted to the DHS secretary to waive legal requirements to construct border barriers violates the Constitution's separation of powers. Lower courts have said the authority doesn't violate the separation of powers.
This was a victory that President Trump absolutely needed in order to keep his promise of ensuring border security for the United States.
Most recently, another appeals court activist judge has ruled his appropriation of funds from the military unconstitutional.
Luckily President Trump has been a warrior for change for the American people and persisted to keep the wall going.
Hopefully the Supreme Court will continue prevent liberal groups and activist judges from legislating frome the bench.
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