The Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court to intervene in another legal battle over immigration enforcement, this time seeking permission to resume border wall construction in Texas' Big Bend region.
In an emergency appeal filed Wednesday, Solicitor General D. John Sauer urged the justices to overturn a lower court ruling that halted construction along a significant stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border.
Sauer called the ruling “baseless,” arguing that it interferes with the federal government's authority to secure roughly a quarter of the southern border.
“Such judicial usurpation of Congress’s commands and the Secretary’s authority amply warrants a stay,” Sauer wrote in the filing.
The dispute centers on construction projects planned for the Big Bend sector, a remote region of West Texas that follows a sweeping bend in the Rio Grande.
Earlier this year, then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem waived several environmental laws to accelerate construction of border barriers and access roads throughout the region.
Although the administration has said it does not intend to build a massive border wall inside Big Bend National Park, other construction projects remain planned within the park. Border wall construction is also expected in surrounding areas.
Those plans prompted a lawsuit from a preservation organization, a recreation guide and the Center for Biological Diversity, which challenged the administration's authority to move forward with the projects.
Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone, who was appointed by former President George W. Bush, sided with the challengers and blocked construction.
Cardone determined that the scope of the proposed projects was substantial enough to require explicit authorization from Congress.
The administration disputes that interpretation, pointing to a federal immigration law that permits border barrier construction “to deter illegal crossings in areas of high illegal entry.”
But Cardone questioned whether the Big Bend region meets that standard, warning that the administration's interpretation could effectively eliminate geographical limits on its authority.
“If the Big Bend Sector is an area of high illegal entry, so is every other sector, and the waiver authority would apply to the entire U.S.-Mexico border,” the judge wrote.
The case marks another confrontation between the Trump administration and federal judges over the limits of presidential authority.
Since returning to office, President Donald Trump has repeatedly sought emergency intervention from the Supreme Court after lower courts blocked major administration policies.
The justices have frequently sided with the administration, although not in every case.
Earlier Wednesday, the Supreme Court declined to reinstate the administration's restrictions involving transgender inmates, delivering a setback to another part of Trump's agenda.
In the Big Bend dispute, Sauer is asking the justices to take an unusually aggressive approach.
Rather than simply suspend Cardone's ruling while litigation continues, the administration wants the Supreme Court to reverse her decision outright without waiting for the case to proceed through the normal appeals process.
“Those errors are so obvious that this Court can swiftly correct them on the merits without further briefing or oral argument,” Sauer wrote.
