The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday, Nov. 9, stayed a federal injunction and allowed the Trump administration to resume border barrier construction in the Big Bend Sector of West Texas.
The unsigned per curiam opinion in Mullin v. Friends of the Ruidosa Church, No. 26A560, said the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas lacked jurisdiction over the challengers' "major questions" claim. Federal law lets the secretary of homeland security waive legal requirements to speed barrier construction and generally limits court review to claims alleging a violation of the Constitution, the court wrote. The major-questions argument, it said, was a statutory claim even though it was styled as constitutional. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson would have denied the stay. The opinion is five pages.
NPR reported that a judge in El Paso had blocked 30-foot steel barriers, patrol roads, surveillance systems and other infrastructure after a suit by the Center for Biological Diversity, a group working to preserve a historic church, and a landowner. "This decision greenlights the contractors and allows the bulldozers to come roaring back into the region," said Laiken Jordahl of the Center for Biological Diversity. The stay lasts while the government seeks Supreme Court review. Related: other Supreme Court orders this week.