US Supreme Court gives green signal for Donald Trump's wall funding

Washington: The US Supreme Court has cleared the way for President Donald Trump to use $2.5 billion from the Defence Department funding to construct a wall on the southern border with Mexico that the government calls necessary to protect national security.

The justices on Friday voted 5-4 to overturn a decision by a lower court in California that barred the Trump administration from employing the money for a purpose other than that designated by Congress.

The wall, dividing the US and Mexico, was Trump's major campaign promise during the 2016 presidential election. It is fiercely opposed by Democrats. In a tweet, Trump described the ruling as a "big victory". He 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.

Donald Trump and Nancy Pelosi

Democrats, however, say that Trump has "manufactured the border emergency" and that the wall has become a symbol of his anti-immigration platform. Trump resorted to tapping funds from the Defence Department funds after failing to persuade Congress to appropriate more money for the wall in a standoff that led to a 35-day-long partial shutdown of the federal government.

On February 15, he declared a national emergency on the border to justify the diversion of funds. The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives voted to block the emergency declaration and the Senate, where Trump's Republicans are in the majority, followed suit, but the President vetoed the legislation and the White House announced plans to spend $8 billion on the wall.

That sum would include just under $1.38 billion from a Homeland Security appropriations bill that Congress passed on February 14 to avert a new government shutdown, while the remaining $6.6 billion in funds was to be shifted from other programmes through a combination of executive actions and the national emergency declaration. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed suit against the administration on behalf of the environmental group Sierra Club and the Southern Border Communities Coalition.

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No. of US states along with rights groups backing lawsuits

A billion dollar wall

Trump had originally requested $5.7 billion for his border wall, but after a tug-of-war that included a record 35-day federal government shutdown, he reluctantly signed a spending bill that included appropriations of just $1.4 billion for border barriers, and not specifically a wall.

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