The Supreme Court has ruled that
President Donald Trump can use $2.5 billion of Pentagon funds for a section of
wall on the southern border.
There were five votes to four to
block a ruling by a federal judge in California that barred President Trump
from spending the money on the Mexican wall.
The wall, dividing the US and
Mexico, was President Trump’s major campaign promise during the 2016 election.
The constructing of the wall is
fiercely opposed by Democrats.
The decision by the Supreme Court
means that the money will be used for wall projects in California, Arizona and
New Mexico.
The court in California had argued
that Congress had not specifically authorized the funds to be used for
constructing the wall.
In a tweet, President Trump
described the ruling as a “big victory”.
He tweeted: “Wow! Big VICTORY on the Wall. The United States Supreme Court overturns
lower court injunction, allows Southern Border Wall to proceed. Big WIN for
Border Security and the Rule of Law!”
President Trump has argued that a new wall would help to curb illegal
immigration, which he says is fuelling crime and placing a strain on the
economy.
Democrats say they are in favor of border security but the wall would be
expensive and ineffective. They argue that President Trump has manufactured the
border emergency and that the wall has become a symbol of Trump’s anti-immigration
platform.
On July 26, the US and Guatemala
signed a deal, under which migrants from Honduras and El Salvador who pass
through Guatemala will be required to stop and seek asylum there first, rather
than heading straight for the US.
The American Civil Liberties Union
(ACLU) has vowed to seek an expedited decision from the Ninth Circuit Court of
Appeals “to halt the irreversible and imminent damage from Trump’s border
wall”.
President Trump declared an emergency earlier this year, saying he needed
$6.7 billion to build the wall as a matter of national security. However, this
figure is far short of the estimated $23 billion cost of a barrier along the
whole 2,000 miles of border.
Democrats claimed President Trump’s decision to declare an emergency
exceeded his powers under the US constitution.
About 20 states, along with groups including the ACLU have filed lawsuits to
try and stop the president using the emergency declaration to bypass Congress.
The House of Representatives is also
taking legal action to stop the diversion of further funds for the wall
project.
According to US authorities, 104,344
people were arrested along the southwest border in June – a 28% drop from the
previous month.
The Trump administration claims the
decrease is due to new policies with Mexico to curb migration, including
increased security on the Mexican side of the border, and the expansion of a
scheme that makes asylum seekers wait in Mexico while their cases are being
processed.
However, experts say that reduced
migration is also typical during the hot summer months.
The number of people detained on the
US-Mexico border is far lower when compared with the previous decade.
The number fell in President Trump’s first year but rose again in 2018 – but even before the increase, when migration numbers were at historic lows, Donald Trump described the situation on the border as a national security crisis.
In a major immigration speech in Phoenix, Arizona, Donald Trump has insisted Mexico will pay for a border wall “100%”.
The GOP nominee told a cheering crowd that he would secure the border, and left open the possibility that millions of illegal immigrants be deported.
Hours earlier, Donald Trump met Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto but said they had not discussed financing the wall.
President Pena Nieto later insisted he had told Donald Trump Mexico would not pay.
There had been speculation that Donald Trump would back off his plan to deport the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the US.
In his speech in Phoenix, there were conflicting signals about this. The Republican said their fate was not a “core issue” and that deporting “criminal aliens” would be the priority.
“We will treat everyone living or residing in our country with great dignity,” he said.
Later Donald Trump struck a more uncompromising note when he added: “Anyone who has entered the United States illegally is subject to deportation. That is what it means to have laws.”
He said it was the right of the US to choose immigrants that “we think are the likeliest to thrive and flourish and love us”.
Elaborating on that idea, Donald Trump said his “extreme vetting” would involve an ideological test for immigrants applying to live in the US.
“Applicants will be asked for their views about honor killings, about respect for women and gays and minorities, attitudes on radical Islam,” he said.
Donald Trump stormed to an unlikely victory in the Republican primaries partly due to his tough talking on immigration.
In Phoenix he vowed to protect the interests of Americans who he said lose out to new arrivals: “We have to listen to the concerns that working people, our forgotten working people, have over the record pace of immigration and its impact on their jobs, wages, housing, schools, tax bills and general living conditions.”
Donald Trump accused his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton of wanting to grant amnesty to undocumented immigrants and of advocating “open border” policies.
Reacting to Donald Trump’s visit to Mexico, Hillary Clinton said he had “choked” by not asking his hosts to pay for his wall.
Mexico’s President Enrique Pena Nieto has likened Donald Trump’s rhetoric to that of Adolf Hitler.
In an interview with Mexican daily Excelsior, Enrique Pena Nieto called Donald Trump’s rhetoric “strident”.
The Mexican leader added that “that’s how Mussolini got in, that’s how Hitler got in”.
Enrique Pena Nieto also said that Donald Trump had hurt US-Mexico relations.
The Republican presidential hopeful has said that if he is elected he will build a wall along the US-Mexico border to keep immigrants from crossing into the US illegally.
Donald Trump has also insisted that Mexico would pay for the border wall, which President Enrique Pena Nieto dismissed out of hand.
The president said there was “no scenario” under which Mexico would ever pay for such a wall.
Donald Trump, who has made the fight against illegal immigration the main plank of his campaign, outraged Mexicans last June when he called undocumented Mexican immigrants “criminals” and “rapists”.
Enrique Pena Nieto said Donald Trump offered “very easy, simple solutions to problems that are obviously not that easy to solve”.
“And there have been episodes in human history, unfortunately, where these expressions of this strident rhetoric have only led to very ominous situations in the history of humanity,” he said.
“That’s how Mussolini got in, that’s how Hitler got in, they took advantage of a situation, a problem perhaps, which humanity was going through at the time, after an economic crisis,” he added.
Enrique Pena Nieto, who had up until now avoided commenting on Donald Trump’s candidacy, insisted he would be “absolutely respectful” of the US political process.
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