Court allows the use of military funds for wall

US President Donald Trump said yesterday that a court had given his administration the green light to use some military funds to build a wall at the US-Mexico border.
“The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals just reversed a lower court decision & gave us the go ahead to build one of the largest sections of the desperately needed Southern Border Wall, Four Billion Dollars,” Trump tweeted.
The Wednesday ruling by a federal appeals court granted the administration’s request to temporarily halt a lower court ruling that blocked officials from using $3.6bn in Defence Department funds for the construction of the border wall.
The lower court had ruled in December that Trump’s declaration of a national emergency at the southern border last February was unlawful.
Trump declared the emergency after he failed to get Congress to give him money for a border wall, even after an extended government shutdown because of the fight over appropriations.
It was an unprecedented move.
The president aimed to use the emergency declaration to divert military funds to build a wall, one of his top campaign promises.
It was controversial as Congress is meant to appropriate funding, not the White House.
In its ruling on Wednesday, the court noted that the Supreme Court stayed a similar injunction last July issued by a federal judge.
The $3.6bn amounts to one-third of the approximately $10bn that Trump has obtained for border wall construction during his presidency, a total that comes from congressional appropriations and redirected Defence Department and Treasury Department funds.
Trump contends the wall will stem illegal crossings and narcotics trafficking.
Congressional Democrats have portrayed the president’s signature project as divisive and a waste of resources.
Congress has approved funding for wall construction in recent years, but at levels below Trump administration requests.
Frustrated by Congress, Trump declared illegal immigration to be a national emergency in February 2019 as part of a plan to access billions of dollars in Pentagon and Treasury funds to build the wall.
Trump administration officials have pledged to build 450 miles (724km) of new and replacement barriers along the border by November 2020, when Trump will face re-election.
But a number of obstacles, including legal challenges and resistance from private landowners, have threatened that objective.
Acting US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner Mark Morgan said in December that the administration may fall short of the 450-mile mark.
Morgan specifically cited the federal court injunction blocking the $3.6bn funding transfer as an obstacle to construction.
The Trump administration has erected 96 miles (155km) of border wall since the president took office in January 2017, according to CBP statistics current to late December.
All of those structures replaced existing barriers, but border wall construction in new areas is under way, the agency said.
Trump vowed during his 2016 presidential campaign to build a wall on the US-Mexico border and force Mexico to pay for it.
The Mexican government, however, has refused to fund the project.