美国最高法院周五推翻了下级法院的禁令，该禁令禁止特朗普政府使用某些重新分配的军事资金来支付在墨西哥南部边境修建隔离墙的费用。
法院的分裂决定解冻了大约25亿美元的资金，这些资金原本由国会分配给国防部使用。唐纳德·特朗普总统在2019年初未能获得国会为他一再承诺修建的边境隔离墙提供的抢手资金，因此他试图重新分配这笔资金，用于在加利福尼亚州、亚利桑那州和新墨西哥州部分地区用新的隔离墙取代现有的边境隔离墙。
包括塞拉俱乐部和美国公民自由联盟在内的一些组织起诉要求停止这些资金的再分配，称总统越权。今年5月，一名联邦法官发布禁令，在法律纠纷结果出来之前，禁止这笔钱用于建筑。7月份，联邦上诉法院驳回了政府取消禁令的请求。
特朗普政府随后于7月中旬将他们的案件提交最高法院，要求“行政暂缓”，在高等法院就是否审理该争议做出决定之前，取消禁令。
塞拉俱乐部和诉讼背后的其他人认为，在法律问题得到解决之前，建筑工程需要暂停，因为继续施工可能会造成不可挽回的伤害。然而，美国副检察长诺埃尔·弗朗西斯科认为，政府修建隔离墙的需要大大超过了其他各方对徒步旅行、观鸟和在指定的毒品走私走廊钓鱼的兴趣
弗朗西斯科曾要求法院在7月26日(今天)之前决定暂缓执行，他说，如果这些资金不能在截止日期前释放，它们很可能会回到财政部，未动用的资金将需要国会重新分配。政府表示，实际上，禁令将作为最终判决，而不是原本应该的临时禁令。
鲁斯·巴德·金斯伯格法官、索尼娅·索托马约尔法官和埃琳娜·卡根法官反对准予中止。第四名法官斯蒂芬·布雷耶(Stephen Breyer)持有部分异议，认为他会批准暂缓令，以防止资金返还财政部，但在法院决定是否批准政府的请愿以听取其上诉之前，他禁止政府继续建设。
布雷耶写道:“允许政府最终确定有争议的合同，但不开始施工，将减轻政府声称的最紧迫的损害，而不会给被调查者带来不可挽回的损害的风险。受访者并不表示他们会仅仅因为合同的最终确定而受到伤害，而且有理由相信他们不会。”
塞拉俱乐部的首席律师格洛丽亚·史密斯可能不同意这种观点。
史密斯在向《新闻周刊》发表的声明中说:“今天允许军事资金转移用于边境隔离墙建设的决定将会封锁并摧毁加利福尼亚州、新墨西哥州和亚利桑那州的社区、公共土地和水域。”。“我们已经看到不断扩大的边界墙造成的破坏。”
史密斯说，塞拉俱乐部打算继续围绕边界墙展开法律斗争。
“这还没有结束，”代表塞拉俱乐部提起诉讼的美国公民自由联盟国家安全项目的工作人员律师Dror Ladin说。“我们将要求联邦上诉法院加快正在进行的上诉程序，以阻止特朗普的边境隔离墙造成的不可逆转和迫在眉睫的损害。如果特朗普逃脱了为仇外边境墙掠夺军事资金的罪名，国会否认了这一点，边境社区、环境和我国宪法的分权将受到永久损害。”
也是诉讼一方的南部边境社区联盟的负责人维姬·高贝卡(Vicki B. Gaubeca)今天辩称，资金的重新分配最终会对该地区造成伤害。
高贝卡在一份声明中表示:“特朗普将军事资金转用于修建其致命而危险的隔离墙的愿望只会进一步降低我们地区的两国特色，并威胁到1500万自称南部边境家园的人们的生活质量。”。“特朗普回避国会的企图是对代表我们民主基石的制衡的直接攻击。”
特朗普在推特上表示，今天的裁决是一个“巨大的胜利”。
他写道:“美国最高法院推翻了下级法院的禁令，允许南边界墙继续进行。”边境安全和法治的大胜利！"
2019年2月12日，德克萨斯州埃尔帕索，工人们继续在美国和墨西哥的边境上修建隔离墙。
The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday overturned a lower court's injunction that had barred the Trump administration from using certain reallocated military funds to pay for construction of a wall along the southern border with Mexico.
The court's split decision unfreezes approximately $2.5 billion in money that had originally been allocated by Congress for use by the Defense Department. President Donald Trump failed in early 2019 to secure sought-after funding from Congress for the border wall he has repeatedly pledged to construct, and so he attempted to reallocate this money to spend on replacing existing border barriers with new walls in portions of California, Arizona and New Mexico.
A number of organizations, including the Sierra Club and the American Civil Liberties Union, sued to halt the reallocation of these funds, arguing that the president had overstepped his authority. In May, a federal judge issued an injunction preventing the money from being used for construction pending the outcome of the legal dispute. A federal appeals court in July rejected the government's request to lift the injunction.
The Trump administration then took their case to the Supreme Court in mid-July, asking for an "administrative stay" that would lift the injunction pending the high court's decision on whether or not it will hear the dispute.
The Sierra Club and others behind the lawsuit have argued that construction needs to be put on hold until the legal issues are resolved because moving forward with construction could result in irreparable harm. However, U.S. Solicitor General Noel Francisco argued that the government's need to build the wall greatly outweighed the other parties "interests in hiking, bird watching, and fishing in designated drug-smuggling corridors."
Francisco had asked the court to decide on the stay before today, July 26, saying that if the funds were not freed up by that deadline, they would likely go back to the Treasury unspent and would need to be allocated by Congress all over again. In effect, said the government, the injunction would have acted as a final judgment instead of the temporary ban it was meant to be.
Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan opposed granting the stay. A fourth, Justice Stephen Breyer, argued in a partial dissent that he would have granted the stay in order to prevent the funds from being returned to the Treasury, but barred the government from moving forward with construction until the court decided whether it would grant the government's petition to hear its appeal.
"Allowing the Government to finalize the contracts at issue, but not to begin construction, would alleviate the most pressing harm claimed by the Government without risking irreparable harm to respondents," wrote Breyer. "Respondents do not suggest that they will be harmed by finalization of the contracts alone, and there is reason to believe they would not be."
Gloria Smith, managing attorney with the Sierra Club, would likely disagree with that sentiment.
"Today's decision to permit the diversion of military funds for border wall construction will wall off and destroy communities, public lands, and waters in California, New Mexico, and Arizona," said Smith in a statement to Newsweek. "We've seen the destruction that the ever-expanding border wall has inflicted."
Smith said the Sierra Club intends to continue the legal battle over the border wall.
"This is not over," said Dror Ladin, staff attorney with the ACLU's National Security Project, which filed the suit on behalf of the Sierra Club. "We will be asking the federal appeals court to expedite the ongoing appeals proceeding to halt the irreversible and imminent damage from Trump's border wall. Border communities, the environment, and our Constitution's separation of powers will be permanently harmed should Trump get away with pillaging military funds for a xenophobic border wall Congress denied."
Vicki B. Gaubeca, director of the Southern Border Communities Coalition, which is also a party to the lawsuit, argued today that the reallocation of funds will ultimately do harm to the region.
"Trump's desire to divert military funds for his deadly and dangerous wall will only further degrade the binational character of our region and threaten the quality of life of the 15 million people who call the southern border home," said Gaubeca in a statement. "Trump's attempts to sidestep Congress are a direct assault on the checks and balances that represent the bedrock of our democracy."
Trump tweeted that today's ruling was a "big victory."
"The United States Supreme Court overturns lower court injunction, allows Southern Border Wall to proceed," he wrote. "Big WIN for Border Security and the Rule of Law!"
Workers continue construction on the U.S.- Mexican border wall on February 12, 2019 in El Paso, Texas.
