9th Circuit Blocks Border Wall Funding

In a divided ruling announced Friday, a panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that the President’s use of emergency powers to appropriate military construction funds to build the border wall is illegal.  Celine Castronuovo of the Hill reports that ruling also lifted a stay put in place by the district court to allow construction to continue while the government appealed.

The ruling came in a lawsuit by the Sierra Club which argued that the use of the construction funds had to be for military construction projects or tied to military use, and that the construction of the wall cause serious damage to the habitat of endangered plants, insects and animals.  Twenty states including California, New York, New Jersey, New Mexico and Illinois were also listed as plaintiffs in the lawsuit.   The two judge majority held that building a border wall did not qualify as a military construction project or benefit the military and asserted that construction of the wall threatened multiple plants and species including the Quino Checkerspot Butterfly, the Coastal California Gnatcatcher, the Western Burrowing Owl.

In his dissent, Judge Daniel Collins cites the U.S. Secretary of Defense findings that construction of the wall along the southern border does qualify as a military project and does benefit the military by helping assure the security of the U.S. Border, which branches of the military are charged with defending.

For the record, the two judges in the majority,  Chief Judge Sidney Thomas, and Kim Wardlaw were Clinton appointees.  Collins was appointed by Trump.   The government will appeal.