Federal judge partially blocks funding for Trump's border wall
Source: The Hill
A federal judge has issued a preliminary injunction partially blocking President Trump's plan to fund a border wall with Mexico with money from the Defense Department.
According to Politico, which first reported the ruling, California U.S. District Court Judge Haywood Gilliam issued the order Friday, limiting construction to specific border areas and blocking the administration's plan to use Pentagon funds from various areas to pay for the construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Trump made an emergency declaration earlier this year to circumvent Congress and reallocate funding from the Defense Department to begin work on the wall. A border wall was one of Trump's campaign promises and has been at the center of policy debates during his presidency.
Read more: https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/445528-federal-judge-partially-blocks-funding-for-trumps-border-wall-report
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(70,214 posts).......If the administration begins illegally diverting additional military funds, we'll be back in court to block that as well," Dror Ladin, an ACLU staff attorney, said in a statement.
In February, Trump declared a national emergency to unlock billions of dollars in federal funds to build a wall on the southern border, bypassing Congress after lawmakers refused to meet his multi-billion dollar request for border wall funds. Trump and his top officials had argued that there was a "crisis" on the southern border, though Democrats pushed against that argument, saying there's no security crisis but rather a humanitarian one.
The decision to invoke a national emergency and bypass Congress was met with bipartisan skepticism. Both chambers of Congress sought to overturn the declaration, but Trump vetoed the measure and the House failed to overturn the veto.
The Democratic-led House of Representatives also sued in an effort to stop Trump from using Defense funds for the border wall. A federal judge heard arguments in the case this week, though he did not say when he would rule.