The injunction granted Friday night by a federal judge in California is likely only the beginning of a potentially lengthy legal battle over wall funding.
A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked part of President Donald Trump’s efforts to use money intended for military use to instead fund construction of a wall along the nation’s southern border with Mexico. But this ruling was far from being the final word on the matter.
U. S. District Court Judge Haywood Gilliam Jr. granted a preliminary injunction (see full 56-page document at the bottom of this story) Friday evening temporarily blocking the Trump administration from using money to build the wall that Congress did not appropriate for that purpose.
« The case is not about whether the challenged border barrier construction plan is wise or unwise. It is not about whether the plan is the right or wrong policy response to existing conditions at the southern border of the United States, » wrote Gilliam. « Instead, this case presents strictly legal questions regarding whether the proposed plan for funding border barrier construction exceeds the Executive Branch’s lawful authority under the Constitution and a number of statutes duly enacted by Congress. »
The judge concluded that « 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. It is a feature of that system, and an essential one. »
He wrote that the Trump administration’s « position that when Congress declines the Executive’s request to appropriate funds, the Executive nonetheless may simply find a way to spend those funds “without Congress” does not square with fundamental separation of powers principles dating back to the earliest days of our Republic. »
The injunction currently only impacts about $1 billion in funding that the Department of Defense had taken from Army personnel funds and shifted to the Department of Homeland Security.
