Texas has won yet another case against the Biden administration. This time, the government has to finish building the wall along the border.
The decision was made on May 29, and people have 60 days to appeal it. The Biden administration didn’t file an appeal by July 29, so the court’s order is still in effect.
The ruling covers two merged cases. One was brought by the Texas General Land Office and the state of Texas while George P. Bush was commissioner, and the other was brought by Missouri and Texas. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas McAllen Division got both of them. In the first, the president, Alejandro Mayorkas as Secretary of Homeland Security, and DHS are all named as defendants. In the second, they are named as accused along with U.S. Customs and Border Protection and its head.
It comes after a ruling in March that gave Texas a win in the combined cases.
The claims say that the president and Mayorkas broke federal law and asked the court to tell them to follow the law and use the money that Congress gave them for what it was meant for.
For 2020 and 2021, Congress set aside about $1.4 billion to pay for building a wall along the southwest border. President Joe Biden stopped building on his first day in office. Since contracts had already been signed, not building the border wall cost the government $6 million at first and then $3 million a day. Sources told The Center Square that materials paid for to build the wall were left to rust on the ground.
Missouri and Texas sued the president and Mayor KasÄma in October 2021, asking the court to tell them to finish building the border wall. The GLO also sued. The GLO owns more than 500,000 acres of land near the border between the US and Mexico, including about 31 miles of land that run along the Rio Grande. Government of Texas (GLO) land was used to build the first part of Gov. Greg Abbott’s border wall in Texas.
As he has done in almost every lawsuit against him, Mayorkas said that he has “discretion” to change or implement rules however he sees fit. In this case, DHS said that Mayorkas had the power to choose how the money was spent, even though the law said that the money should be used to build the border wall and hurdles.
As the cases moved forward and were combined, Mayorkas changed how the border wall money was spent so that it was used for environmental projects and repairs.
When the plaintiffs asked for a permanent injunction, Judge Drew Tipton said yes because they “have demonstrated success on the merits of their claims brought under the Administrative Procedures Act for violation of the Consolidated Appropriations Act.”
To stop building the border wall, Tipton told the federal government, its agencies, officers, workers, and other people to be “enjoined and restrained from implementing a July 22 Amended Plan.” He also said that the federal government couldn’t use the money for building the border wall for “mitigation and remediation efforts, repair of existing barrier, so-called system attribute installation at existing sites, or other similar purposes.” Instead, he said, the money could only be used for “the construction of physical barriers, such as additional walls, fencing, buoys, etc.”
Tipton also says that this case “is different from most APA cases” because the plaintiffs were challenging a letter Mayorkas sent, not an agency rule. He says that Mayorkas could “simply re-obligate the appropriations at issue” by taking back or deleting his memo. But, “just getting rid of the DHS Plan would not stop DHS from making the same illegal spending decisions if it chose to,” he says. That’s why he issued a permanent injunction. He said that his decision gives “more relief” and “leaves intact the many obligations and policies in the Plan that Plaintiffs do not challenge.” He also didn’t believe any of the Biden administration’s other promises.
In answer, Ken Paxton, the attorney general of Texas, said, “This is the last blow to Biden’s plan to cut funding for the border wall.” His administration did something wrong when they tried to stop the building of the border wall and when they tried to use money that was supposed to be used for American safety and security to keep the border open instead.
He said that the GLO, Texas, and Missouri “sued and won to stop their illegal scheme.” “The Administration has given up and won’t be appealing their loss. They will now be legally required to build the wall.”