https://www.courthousenews.com/ninth-circuit-blocks-construction-of-trumps-border-wall/
(CN) — The Ninth Circuit on Friday ruled that President Donald Trump’s allocation of military funds for construction of his border wall was illegal, upholding a December 2019 ruling from a federal judge.
In 2019, U.S. District Judge Haywood Gilliam granted summary judgment to a slew of states and advocacy groups seeking to halt construction of the southern border wall. After Congress gave Trump $1.3 billion instead of his requested $5.7 billion for border wall funding, the president invoked the National Emergencies Act to declare an emergency at the southern border.
Ruling 2-1, the Ninth Circuit panel found that the diversion of funds to be unlawful and sidestepped the constitutional separation of powers, including the legislative branch’s control of funding.
“Particularly in the context of this case, where Congress declined to fund the very projects at issue and attempted to terminate the declaration of a national emergency (twice), we cannot interpret the statute to give the Executive Branch unfettered discretion to divert funds to any land it deems under military jurisdiction,” wrote Chief Circuit Judge Sidney Thomas, a Bill Clinton appointee.
U.S. Circuit Judge Daniel Collins, a Trump appointee, dissented from the majority, claiming that the court went too far to determine the scope of the law.
“The majority’s contrary conclusion rests on the implicit view that this court gets to substitute its own view of when the armed forces are needed in a national emergency for the view of the President as stated in the emergency declaration,” Collins wrote.
https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/border-wall.pdf