An ongoing legal spat between the federal government and Texas has reached a new low point: a federal court temporarily halted the Biden administration’s efforts to redirect $1.4 billion in funds appropriated by Congress from border wall construction.
This decision is based on President Joe Biden’s decree dated January 2021, which halted the building of the border wall and ended the national emergency that had been declared at the southern border during Trump’s presidency. While agencies investigated, the 2020 and 2021 budgets for the border wall were temporarily halted.
No further funds from the American taxpayers will be used to build a wall along the border; this will be a policy of my administration. As for the resources that have been taken or diverted to build a wall along the southern border, Biden announced that a thorough evaluation would be conducted.
A proposal to cancel most border wall projects was announced in June of that year by the Department of Homeland Security. In 2022, the same plan would be amended to include rehabilitation and the inclusion of barrier system upgrades, such as lighting, cameras, and detection.
The states of Missouri and Texas filed a lawsuit, claiming that the transfer of funds was unlawful and a violation of the separation of powers. They further claimed that the states would suffer financial losses due to an increase in illegal immigration. The two lawsuits were subsequently merged, and Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush was also a plaintiff.
DHS claimed that Texas had failed to prove that increased illegal immigration will ensue from insufficient wall construction, citing the fact that “social, economic, and political factors” can all contribute to increases in migration.
U.S. District Judge Drew Tipton, who was appointed by Trump and had previously sided with the Biden administration in another matter, now sided with Missouri and Texas and issued a temporary restraining order to prevent the rerouting of monies.