A Texas county sued to stop military money from being used to build a wall on the border with mexico.
A Texas judge said no.
Now in a 2-1 decision, he has been over rulled by the appeals court.
Now (and @Safiel can correct me if I’m wrong) it can be applealed to the full 5th appeals court, or to the Supreme court. I doubt that those fighting the wall will give up this easy.
In a 2-1 ruling, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals granted a stay of a Texas judge’s order, which the administration had appealed. The case is still ongoing.
The latest ruling applies to the military construction funds. Last September, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper authorized diverting $3.6 billion in the construction funds for 11 wall projects on the southern border with Mexico. The Pentagon said at the time that half the money was coming from deferred projects overseas, and the other half was planned for projects in the US.
No on this statement I want to know:
“It’s unfortunate that the people of El Paso will continue to suffer harm while the government appeals, but we’re confident that we’ll prevail again in this next stage of litigation,” she said.
How in the hell is preventing criminals (yes when you break a law aka immigration law, federal law you ARE a criminal) causing harm to the people of El Paso???
The President doesn’t have the power of the purse, and he doesn’t really have the right to seize private land without the authorization of Congress. The Supreme Court decisions Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer and Clinton v. City of New York clearly point that out. And there are still other lawsuits out there against the President from unconstitutionally taking millions of dollars away from the military. https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2019/sep/19/washington-sues-trump-over-transfer-of-89-million-/
Nope congress does. And they passed a law saying upon declaration of an emergency, the president is authorized to take funds from other area’s. Congress in the same law, gave them veto power over the presidents delaration. The Veto from congress failed, and the law was followed.
When congress authorized the wall (with a 1.4 billion dollar funding), they didn’t include specific sections. Just a wall on the southern border. When that was done, it gave the administration the right to seek property through Eminent Domain (not seizing as a property owner can challenge it in court).
The taking of money from the military and other area’s is well within the constitution as it was done through a law passed by congress.
I think we all can agree, that if this was a Democratic administration doing this, eminent domain etc…There would be Tea Party/Militia types hold up on the land in question…Just like during the Bundy fiasco years ago…
It doesn’t matter. That law from 1976 is unconstitutional. Congress passed a law back in 1996 that gave the President the power to line-item veto budget bills, but that law was ruled unconstitutional in Clinton v. City of New York in 1998.
Link to the Order of the Court in this case, a short per curiam decision, plus a short dissent. The whole document totals only 4 pages.
As stated in the order,it is quite likely the Fifth Circuit might dismiss this case entirely due to lack of Article III standing by the Appellees.
United States Circuit Judges Edith Jones and Andy Oldham joined in the per curiam. United Stats Circuit Judge Stephen Higginson dissented.
Appellees have ZERO percent chance of even getting en banc review, let alone overturning this on en banc review. Similarly they have ZERO percent chance of the Supreme Court vacating the order of the Fifth Circuit.
Before I proceed, I will reiterate that I OPPOSE the border wall. It has already PROVEN ineffective in areas where it has been built and there are far better border control methods available. I also oppose Congress’s abdication of its power of the purse by granting such large loopholes to the President to move money around.
However, sad and unfortunate as it is, the President likely has the higher legal ground and will likely ultimately prevail.
However, Congress should close down these loopholes and reclaim its power, forcing Republican and Democratic Presidents to make their request for appropriations to Congress and preventing situations such as we now see.
Personally, I would start by building wall on property where the owners want it. Some ranchers don’t like their property being used as an invasion or drug cartel route.
What court has ruled that the law giving the president the right to declare a national emergency is unconstitutional?
And the line item veto budget bill tecnically was uncsontitution as the constitution says the president may veto the bill (not parts of it).
Try again.
More than likely I would fully support that. Utah ends up doing that on a yearly basis as they re-construct interchanges, start new roads.
Here in my local town, they have used ED twice for roads. One was suck a bizar incident that they really didn’t have a choice on how it went down.
Esentially someone screwed up property puchases 50 or 60 years ago leaving a section of road with “no owner”. When the city abandond the road . . . . they didn’t have an owner to turn it over to (typically a road is an easment across a person’s property and if the city abandon’s the easment the property returns to the land owner).
So the did the ED to aquire the strip of land the road was on, and sold it to the property owner the road ran through. The Courts determined fair market value, and the city deposited the money with the court. Then the fun of tracking down the last person of record that had deed to the property where the road is, then trying to find any living relative to give them the money.
