Supreme Court allows Big Bend wall construction

In an unsigned 8–1 order on Nov. 9, the Supreme Court lifted a lower-court order and temporarily allowed the Trump administration to resume border-barrier and related infrastructure work in Texas’s Big Bend region while a legal challenge continues; Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented. The court said federal law gives the Homeland Security secretary broad authority to waive environmental requirements and allows rapid border construction to proceed despite harms alleged by opponents. The project covers a roughly 500-mile sector and includes barriers, patrol roads and surveillance equipment, with some sections planned as 30-foot walls; the administration says it will not build a large wall inside Big Bend National Park. Environmentalists, local landowners and preservation advocates argue the work threatens protected wilderness, wildlife and cultural resources in a region with historically low illegal-crossing rates, and say surveillance technology could secure the area with less environmental impact. The administration cites apprehensions, drug seizures and security risks from leaving a gap in border defenses.