BREAKING: Supreme Court allows Trump to resume border wall construction in Texas' Big Bend National Park. pic.twitter.com/jpRawVj2zW
— Polymarket (@Polymarket) November 9, 2026
The Supreme Court on Monday cleared the way for the Trump administration to resume construction of a border wall in the Big Bend region of southwestern Texas. In a four-page, unsigned opinion, the justices granted the government’s request to pause an order by a federal district judge that had temporarily halted the project. Only Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson indicated, without explanation, that she would have denied the government’s request.
The dispute began earlier this year, when then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and her successor, Markwayne Mullin, issued three waivers of various environmental and conservation laws to authorize construction of the wall in the Big Bend region, which includes parts of Big Bend National Park. Noem and Mullin relied on a provision of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 that gives the DHS secretary the power to “waive all legal requirements” necessary “to ensure expeditious construction” of border walls and roads. When they announced the waivers, Noem and Mullin indicated that the Big Bend area “is an area of high illegal entry” requiring additional walls and barriers.
A group of plaintiffs opposed to the construction – an environmental group, a local landowner who works as a river guide, and a group formed to preserve a church – went to federal court to challenge the waivers’ legality. On Oct. 2, U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone temporarily barred the Department of Homeland Security from continuing construction on the border wall in the Big Bend region “until and unless” the government complies with environmental and other applicable laws.
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