The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to let border-wall building restart in Texas’s Big Bend region, saying a judge’s freeze hurts its fight against illegal crossings and drug smuggling.
Story Snapshot
- On Wednesday, October 21, the Justice Department filed an emergency request asking the Supreme Court to lift the freeze.
- U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone halted the work on October 2, finding Homeland Security likely lacked the power to waive environmental laws there.
- The freeze blocks barriers, roads and any ground work across the Big Bend Sector, more than 500 miles of border.
- An environmental group, a riverboat guide and a church preservation group brought the lawsuit.
What Triggered The High Court Request
Solicitor General D. John Sauer, the lawyer who argues for the federal government before the Supreme Court, filed the request. He wrote that the judge’s order “significantly frustrates the government’s ability to stop the flow of illegal aliens and drugs,” and he pointed to “high rates of illegal-alien crossings and drug smuggling” in the region. He called the order “baseless” and “unprecedented.” The government also warned that a 300-mile gap in the wall would “act as a dangerous magnet for cartels and other bad actors.”
The administration asked the justices to pause the order. It also asked for summary reversal, which means overturning the lower court quickly, without a full round of briefs and arguments. The filing said the government’s border-security interests “vastly outweigh any aesthetic, recreational, or cultural injuries” claimed by the challengers. Shortly before the filing, Judge Cardone turned down the administration’s request to put her own order on hold.
The Legal Hook: Congress Gave Tools For Fast Border Builds
A 1996 immigration law lets the Homeland Security secretary waive, or set aside, legal rules that would slow the building of barriers and roads near the border in areas of “high illegal entry.” Courts can hear challenges to those waivers only when someone claims the Constitution was violated. Then-Secretary Kristi Noem used this power when she announced the Big Bend project in February, and her successor, Markwayne Mullin, issued two more waivers. Without them, the project would have to follow federal environmental and historic preservation laws.
Judge Cardone, who sits in El Paso, explained her ruling in an October 14 opinion. She relied on the major questions doctrine, a legal rule that says Congress must speak clearly before an agency can use its power on a matter of vast importance. She wrote that the evidence shows Big Bend has the lowest rate of illegal entry on the entire border, so Congress could not have clearly approved waivers there. Sauer argues the judge had no power to hear that claim because it is about a law, not the Constitution, and that Congress clearly gave the secretary this authority.
Why Big Bend Became A Major Test
The Big Bend Sector covers more than 500 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border and 77 Texas counties. The plan calls for 30-foot bollard walls, made of tall steel posts set close together, running from Fort Quitman, Texas, to Closed Canyon in Big Bend Ranch State Park. The government says the walls and roads together span more than 300 miles, along with patrol roads, detection technology and about 17 miles of vehicle barriers. Officials say the wall itself will not cut through Big Bend National Park. Work on a 47-mile stretch began in September, and five contracts have been awarded.
The two sides read the numbers differently. Sauer wrote that Customs and Border Protection caught more than 89,000 people trying to cross illegally in the sector from 2021 to 2025. The challengers say Big Bend ranks last of the seven southern border sectors for apprehensions, meaning arrests at the border, even though it covers more than a quarter of the border. According to court filings, its yearly share was 0.3% to 2.2% of all border arrests.
The challengers sued in April. They are the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group; a professional riverboat guide; and Friends of the Ruidosa Church, a religious group dedicated to preserving the Sacred Heart of the Church of Jesus along the Rio Grande. Zeynep Graves, a senior attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, said the group was “deeply disappointed” by the request and confident that only Congress can approve walling off the entire border.
What Conservatives Should Watch Next
The justices can grant the pause, which would let construction restart while the lawsuit goes on, or leave the freeze in place. A win would back the administration’s view that Congress gave the executive branch the tools to build border barriers fast in areas it judges to need them. If the request is denied, the work stays stopped, and the fight returns to the lower courts over whether the waivers were lawful.
Sources:
cbsnews.com, scotusblog.com, reuters.com, tpr.org, clearinghouse.net
