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Federal judge blocks Trump plan to spend $3.6 billion in military funds on border wall
By Nick Miroff
Dec. 10, 2019 at 6:30 p.m. EST
A federal judge in El Paso on Tuesday blocked the Trump administration’s plan to pay for border barrier construction with $3.6 billion in military funds, ruling that the administration does not have the authority to divert money appropriated by Congress for a different purpose.
The Trump administration was planning to use those funds to build 175 miles of steel barriers, and the court’s permanent injunction casts new doubt on Trump’s pledge to erect 450 linear miles of fencing by the end of next year.
District Court Judge David Briones, a Bill Clinton appointee, said in his ruling that the administration’s attempt to reprogram military construction funds by emergency proclamation was unlawful and that the plaintiffs in the case were entitled to a permanent injunction halting the government.
A ruling Briones issued in October placed a temporary hold on Trump’s plan to use the funds, but that decision did not have a nationwide scope.
The Trump administration has budgeted nearly $10 billion for barrier construction to date, so the ruling affects roughly one-third of the money the president plans to spend on his signature project. Briones’s decision does not apply to other money available to the administration, including reprogrammed military counternarcotics funds.
The ruling marked the first instance of a local jurisdiction successfully suing to block construction of Trump’s border barrier.
Lower federal courts side against Trump on border barrier funding
more:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/federal-judge-blocks-trump-plan-to-spend-36-billion-in-military-funds-on-border-wall/2019/12/10/e534468a-1b9f-11ea-87f7-f2e91143c60d_story.html
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