Blocking border wall funding

Trump appeals order partially blocking border wall funding

By IAN KULLGREN

The Trump administration on Wednesday asked a federal judge to allow construction of the president’s border wall to commence while it appeals an unfavorable ruling from last week.

In court filings, the Justice Department said it would appeal a federal judge‘s decision to halt a $1 billion transfer of Pentagon counter-drug funding to cover expansions of two border barriers. The administration said the planned sections of border wall — in Yuma, Ariz. and El Paso, Texas — sit atop Homeland Security’s list of priorities due to high volumes of drug smuggling through those areas.

“Unless stayed, the Court’s injunction will irreparably harm the Government (and the public) by prohibiting the Government from taking critical steps to stop the flow of illegal drugs from entering the country through the southern border,” DOJ attorneys wrote. “Large quantities of illegal drugs are being smuggled into the country through the Yuma and El Paso sectors, including by transnational criminal organizations.“

The administration asked the district court to make a decision by next Wednesday while it appeals to the Ninth Circuit.

Oakland, Calif.-based U.S. District Court Judge Haywood Gilliam had blocked President Donald Trump’s fund transfer’s last week, rejecting the government’s argument that the move was based on “unforseen” need. The administration had planned to start construction on the Yuma section this week, DOJ attorneys wrote.

In its Wednesday filing, the administration argued that taxpayers will be forced to foot the bill for the stalled projects at rates of $195,000 a day for the El Paso section and $20,000 a day for the Yuma section, since the contractors will have to be reimbursed for costs they incur during the shutdowns, including site security.
All told, the government said it could face costs of $6 million a month for the stalled projects — outweighing the “aesthetic and recreational interests“ of the Sierra Club, which filed the lawsuit with the Southern Border Communities Coalition.

“These expenditures will come out of the finite funds available for border barrier construction and will thus irreparably harm the Government’s border barrier construction efforts,” the DOJ attorneys wrote.

Congress last year rejected Trump’s request for $5.7 billion in border wall funding, leading to the 35-day partial government shutdown in December and January. Although Congress passed a spending package in February that gave $1.4 billion for roughly 55 miles of new border barriers, Trump declared a national emergency to unlock an additional $6.7 billion.

Trump, in response to Friday’s ruling, called Gilliam an “activist Obama appointed judge“ who ruled in favor of “crime, drugs and human trafficking.“