Trump, From Japan, Says Wants Fast Appeal on Border Wall Ruling
Trump campaigned on a promise to build a wall, paid for by Mexico, on his path to the White House in 2016.
(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump woke early in Tokyo to say he would ask for an “expedited appeal” against a California judge’s ruling late Friday that plans to build the wall on the U.S.-Mexico border can’t go forward without his review.
U.S. District Judge Haywood Gilliam stopped short of barring Trump from diverting billions of dollars in the federal budget to pay for his promised border wall.
The injunction prohibits the administration from starting work at two sites where contracts have been awarded, in Arizona and Texas. Parties have been asked to appear again before Gilliam in Oakland on June 5 to argue the merits for a more comprehensive injunction and a possible trial, according to the judge’s order.
In a Twitter message that landed at 4:35 a.m. Tokyo time, Trump called the decision “a ruling against Border Security” by “another activist Obama appointed judge.”
Trump arrived in Tokyo late Saturday local time and had dinner with business executives. He’s expected to play golf on Sunday with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and attend a sumo wrestling tournament.
Judge Gilliam on Friday rejected the idea, central to the Justice Department’s argument, that since Congress hadn’t explicitly told Trump not to divert funds from the 2019 budget, he was thereby entitled to use his presidential powers to reallocate the money he wants to build sections of the wall.
‘Separation of Powers’
This “does not square with fundamental separation of powers principles dating back to the earliest days of our Republic,” Gilliam said in the 56-page opinion issued late Friday. “Congress’s ‘absolute’ control over federal expenditures -- even when that control may frustrate the desires of the Executive Branch regarding initiatives it views as important -- is not a bug in our constitutional system.”
Trump campaigned on a promise to build a wall, paid for by Mexico, on his path to the White House in 2016. As he runs for re-election in 2020, a protracted legal battle over how to pay for the project may ultimately end up before the U.S. Supreme Court.
The number of migrants attempting to cross the southwestern border has surged as violence, economic turmoil and climate change trigger crises in Mexico and its Central American neighbors, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. More than 109,000 people tried to cross in April, with 90% skirting official ports of entry, according to government data.
Cold Reception
Trump has been unable to reach a consensus with a divided Congress on immigration reform, and his latest plan for a comprehensive overhaul is getting a cold reception even within the ranks of Republican lawmakers.
To move forward with the wall project, the Defense Department transferred $1 billion to the Army Corps of Engineers on March 25. The administration awarded its first contract for construction in Yuma, Arizona, on April 9, but the award was challenged by the Government Accountability Office within 10 days and scrapped on May 4.
The funds earmarked for reallocation are primarily coming from drug interdiction and enforcement activities. Court records show that the role of the military in construction of the wall is still under discussion.
Gilliam is likely to evaluate the legality of the funding for each project as it’s proposed rather than issue the sweeping injunction sought by opponents of the wall including the Sierra Club and a coalition of about 20 state attorneys general, among others.
The American Civil Liberties Union and a group of 16 state attorneys general led the attack against the president’s emergency declaration. The ACLU called today’s order a win for checks and balances.
“The court blocked all the wall projects currently slated for immediate construction,” said Dror Ladin, staff attorney with the ACLU’s National Security Project. “If the administration begins illegally diverting additional military funds, we’ll be back in court to block that as well.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Kartikay Mehrotra in San Francisco at kmehrotra2@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net, Ros Krasny, Linus Chua
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