Supreme Court Lets Trump Resume Big Bend Border-Wall Construction
The Supreme Court stayed a federal injunction against Trump’s Big Bend border project, allowing construction to resume while the administration seeks full review of the dispute.
The Supreme Court on Monday, November 9, allowed President Donald Trump’s administration to resume border-wall construction in the Big Bend region of southwest Texas while the government seeks full review of a lower-court injunction. The emergency order is a significant new turn in a dispute TrumpInsight covered when the administration first asked the justices to intervene on October 21.
The court granted the administration’s application for a stay in Mullin v. Friends of the Ruidosa Church. The order pauses an October 2 injunction issued by U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone, who had blocked construction tied to three Department of Homeland Security waivers. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said she would have denied the stay; no other justice recorded a dissent.
The ruling permits work but does not end the case
The five-page unsigned opinion does not finally decide whether the project is lawful. It allows construction to proceed while the government prepares a petition asking the Supreme Court to hear the case. If the justices deny that petition, the stay ends automatically. If they grant review, the stay remains until the court sends down its judgment.
That distinction matters because the court was reviewing an emergency request, not issuing a final merits judgment on every claim. The challengers—an individual river guide, the Center for Biological Diversity and a nonprofit dedicated to preserving a historic church in Ruidosa, Texas—can continue litigating, but the district court’s construction halt is no longer in effect during the next stage.
The court focused on jurisdiction
The majority said the government was “exceedingly likely to prevail” on its argument that the district court lacked jurisdiction. A 1996 immigration law permits federal district courts to hear constitutional challenges to DHS waiver decisions but bars nonconstitutional claims. The Supreme Court concluded that the challengers’ major-questions argument was, despite its label, a claim that the secretary exceeded statutory authority rather than a constitutional claim.
The opinion also said the injunction interfered with the government’s compelling interests in border security. It cited a Customs and Border Protection declaration saying the construction pause was generating nearly $500,000 in unrecoverable costs each day. On the competing harms, the court said Congress had authorized the homeland security secretary to waive environmental and conservation requirements to speed border construction.
The project remains environmentally contested
DHS invoked that waiver authority for projects in the Big Bend Sector, which includes remote stretches along the Rio Grande and areas around Big Bend National Park. NBC News reported that the planned work covers about 341 miles and includes barriers and roads. The administration says additional infrastructure is needed to deter unlawful crossings and prevent traffic from shifting into gaps elsewhere along the border.
The challengers argue that construction will permanently alter an irreplaceable landscape and threaten historic and cultural resources. They also dispute the administration’s description of Big Bend as an area of high illegal entry, pointing to government data showing comparatively low migrant encounters in the sector. Those environmental and statutory objections remain part of the underlying dispute even though the Supreme Court lifted the immediate construction block.
What happens next
The administration must file a timely petition for a writ of certiorari if it wants the stay to continue. The Supreme Court can then decline the case, accept it for full briefing and argument, or otherwise address the litigation. Monday’s order gives Trump the immediate operational result his administration requested—permission to restart work—but it is not a final ruling upholding every waiver or resolving the broader legal challenge.
Sources and image credit
- Primary record — Supreme Court docket for Mullin v. Friends of the Ruidosa Church, No. 26A560
- Primary record — Supreme Court per curiam opinion granting the stay
- NBC News — Supreme Court paves way for Big Bend border-wall construction
- Reuters — Supreme Court allows Trump border wall at Big Bend National Park
- Associated Press — Supreme Court clears the way for Big Bend construction to resume
- Image — Santa Elena Canyon and the Rio Grande by Yinan Chen, Wikimedia Commons