A federal judge bars border construction across the Big Bend sector

US District Judge Kathleen Cardone on Friday barred the Trump administration from building a border barrier, or any related ground-disturbing works, in the Big Bend sector of Texas unless the government complies with environmental law. The order does not end the case. It stops the project while the court hears it, and it blocks Customs and Border Protection from treating a self-granted waiver as a licence to start again.

Cardone read the order from the bench in El Paso and followed it with a two-page injunction. The government, she wrote, shall not build border barrier or related infrastructure, or engage in any construction or ground-disturbing activities, in the Big Bend sector, unless it complies with environmental laws. She said the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on at least one of their claims, and that they would face serious, irreparable harm without an injunction. She also said the administration could not rely on waivers of environmental and other statutes until the case is resolved.

The plaintiffs are the Center for Biological Diversity, a group called Friends of the Ruidosa Church, and a Big Bend-area river guide and landowner. They sued in the Western District of Texas. They argue that Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and other officials improperly waived environmental statutes to speed the plan. The New York Times reported that the suit seeks to stop barrier construction across a stretch of frontier of more than 500 miles. Reuters placed Big Bend National Park about 250 miles, or 400 kilometres, southeast of El Paso.

The injunction lands on a project that was already paused, and on a plan to unpause it. Commissioner Rodney Scott halted construction amid criticism of the effect on the park's land and wildlife. Reuters put that pause at nearly seven weeks before Friday's ruling, after crews had started clearing land in August. Scott said he wanted to visit, do a personal evaluation, and speak with interested parties. Federal lawyers then told the court, days before the hearing, that the agency would resume barrier work in several parts of the Big Bend region, though not inside the national park itself. Cardone's order covers the sector, not only the park boundary, so that planned restart is what the injunction reaches.

The works on the table are not a single 30-foot wall. Reuters reported that the plan includes roads, surveillance technology and vehicle barriers, in country where the terrain already slows a crossing. The park itself is 801,163 acres, established as a national park on 12 June 1944 after Franklin Roosevelt signed the enabling act in 1935. Santa Elena Canyon runs about 20 miles through limestone walls that the Park Service puts at 1,500 feet in places. On the Mexican side, Canon de Santa Elena is one of three protected areas that, with Big Bend, cover more than three million acres of Chihuahuan Desert and more than 200 miles of river. A road cut or a barrier footing in that canyon country is the harm the plaintiffs say cannot be undone if they win later.

Customs and Border Protection answered the order with a short defence of its legal position. The agency said it stood by its assessment and remained confident in its authorities to secure the border while preserving the landscape of the Big Bend region. Senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, had already urged consultation and a reconsideration, according to Reuters. Local officials and some other Texas Republicans had criticised the project before the suit reached a hearing. The bipartisan part of the objection has been about the park, not about whether the border should be policed.

The order leaves a lawful path. If the government complies with the environmental statutes the waiver was meant to skip, construction can be proposed again. Until then, Scott cannot convert his personal evaluation into a restart. The case now moves to a full hearing on the waiver. The clearing done in August is the physical fact already on the ground. The injunction is the legal fact that stops the next cut.