WASHINGTON—On Friday, a Texas federal district court ordered the Biden Administration to stop diverting funds from the construction of physical barriers at the border, but to spend that money as Congress directed—to build a wall. The Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI) had filed a brief in the court urging that result.
In 2019, Congress passed an appropriations act mandating that billions be spent on new wall construction. Yet the administration has flatly refused to spend this money for that purpose, despite a finding by the Department of Homeland Security that walls are 90 percent effective at stopping unlawful border-crossings.
In its brief, IRLI showed why this refusal is a violation of the administration’s constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. The administration has not just refused to enforce the law, but has thwarted Congress’s very purpose in that law: stopping 90 percent of illegal border-crossers with a wall. When an administration goes so far as to block what Congress was trying to accomplish with a law, and instead creates the opposite result, that administration has failed to take care in a way that is extraordinary, and that courts can and should act on.
In Friday’s order, the court concluded that the administration violated the terms of the law in which Congress appropriated funds specifically for wall-building. The court thus had a basis to enjoin the administration’s action as contrary to law, without even needing to consider the administration’s failure to take care.
“The Biden Administration has abundantly shown itself to be at war with our immigration laws,” said Dale L. Wilcox, executive director and general counsel of IRLI. “This is not acceptable in an executive sworn to uphold and faithfully execute those laws. We are pleased the court checked the administration’s lawlessness here, and ordered it to build the wall the law says must be built.”
The case is General Land Office of the State of Texas v. Biden, No. 7:21-CV-00272 (S.D. Tex.).
