PRESIDENT: ‘Entire Wall is under construction or getting ready to start!’…
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) A federal appeals court ruled today that the Trump administration can allocate Defense Department funds to the construction of a southern border wall, overruling a federal court that had tried to block the administration’s efforts last month.
The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals stayed the Texas federal judge’s order, which the administration had appealed.
The case is still ongoing, but President Trump hailed the 2-1 ruling as an important victory.
Breaking News: 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. Entire Wall is under construction or getting ready to start!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 9, 2020
U.S. District Judge David Briones ruled in December that the Pentagon could not use $3.6 billion it had drawn from “a variety of sources, including cost savings, programmatic changes, and revised requirements,” according to spokesman Tom Crosson, to help build Trump’s promised border wall.
The U.S. Supreme Court had issued an earlier ruling allowing Trump to use a separate set of military funds allocated from counter-drug and Treasury Forfeiture Funds.
Because of this, the 5th Circuit concluded that the Supreme Court’s ruling must become precedent, according to CNN.
Kristy Parker, counsel for Protect Democracy, one of the liberal groups that sued the administration, decried the 5th Circuit’s ruling.
“It’s unfortunate that the people of El Paso will continue to suffer harm while the government appeals, but we’re confident that we’ll prevail again in this next stage of litigation,” she said in a statement.