Supreme Court Clears Way for Trump Border Wall in Texas’s Big Bend Region

WASHINGTON, Nov. 10 (TodayViralUSA) — The Supreme Court on Monday allowed the Trump administration to restart construction of border barriers in the remote Big Bend region of West Texas, lifting a lower-court order that had frozen work on one of the president’s signature immigration projects.

In a short, unsigned opinion, the justices granted the government’s emergency request to pause a preliminary injunction issued last month by U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone in El Paso. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the only member of the court to say she would have denied the request. She did not explain her vote.

Court says judge lacked authority

The case turns on a 1996 immigration law that lets the Homeland Security secretary waive “all legal requirements” needed to speed construction of border barriers and roads in areas of high illegal entry. The same law sharply limits court challenges, allowing judges to hear only claims that the Constitution has been violated.

Earlier this year, then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and her successor, Markwayne Mullin, issued three waivers setting aside environmental and conservation laws for the Big Bend Sector. A river guide, the Center for Biological Diversity and a nonprofit working to preserve a historic church in Ruidosa, Texas, sued, arguing the waivers exceeded the secretary’s power under the “major questions” doctrine.

Judge Cardone agreed and halted construction on Oct. 2. The Supreme Court said the government is “exceedingly likely to prevail” on its argument that the judge had no jurisdiction, because the challengers’ claim was really about statutory authority, not the Constitution. “There is no such thing as a ‘constitutional’ major-questions claim,” the court wrote, according to SCOTUSblog.

The justices also said the injunction impeded the government’s “compelling interests” in border security and was costing taxpayers nearly half a million dollars a day in unrecoverable expenses. The court declined the administration’s separate request to summarily reverse the lower-court ruling, so the underlying lawsuit will continue.

A 341-mile stretch of remote border

The government says the project covers about 341 miles of construction along the Rio Grande, including 30-foot steel barriers, patrol roads and surveillance systems, NBC News and NPR reported. The area includes Big Bend National Park, one of the most remote and visited landscapes in the Southwest.

Opponents argue the region has the lowest migrant apprehension rates anywhere on the southern border. In her ruling, Cardone noted that the sector makes up more than a quarter of the U.S.-Mexico border but only a small fraction of apprehensions.

“This horrific decision clears the way for contractors to bulldoze pristine desert and dynamite canyon walls before the courts have even decided whether this destruction is legal,” said Laiken Jordahl of the Center for Biological Diversity.

Homeland Security general counsel James Percival welcomed the outcome on X, noting the lopsided vote. “We just won 8-1,” he wrote.

What comes next

The stay remains in place while the government pursues a full appeal at the Supreme Court. Administration officials have argued that leaving Big Bend open while other sections of the wall are completed would create a gap that smugglers could exploit, as the White House pushes to finish roughly 2,000 miles of barriers and surveillance technology along the southern border.