Supreme Court Lets Trump Resume Border Wall Construction in Texas’s Big Bend, Over Jackson’s Dissent

The Supreme Court on Monday, Nov. 9, cleared the way for the Trump administration to resume building a border wall and roads in the remote Big Bend region of southwest Texas, pausing a federal judge’s order that had halted the project. In an unsigned opinion in Mullin v. Friends of the Ruidosa Church, the court said the government is “exceedingly likely to prevail” on its argument that the lower court lacked jurisdiction. Only Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said she would have denied the request, without explanation.

The Big Bend border wall section would involve 341 miles of construction, including parts of Big Bend National Park, the government says, NBC News reported. The justices granted a stay but declined the administration’s request to summarily reverse the lower court, so the legal fight is not over.

What the court decided

The case turns on a 1996 immigration law that lets the Homeland Security secretary “waive all legal requirements” needed for “expeditious construction” of border barriers in “areas of high illegal entry,” and that allows courts to hear only constitutional challenges to those waivers. Then-Secretary Kristi Noem issued a waiver in February and her successor, Markwayne Mullin, issued two more in May and July, setting aside environmental and conservation laws for the project.

A river guide, the Center for Biological Diversity and a nonprofit restoring a historic church in Ruidosa, Texas, sued. On Oct. 2, U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone blocked the waivers, treating the major questions doctrine, which requires clear authorization from Congress for sweeping agency actions, as a constitutional claim. The Supreme Court rejected that view. The challengers’ claim “simply alleged that the Secretary exceeded his statutory authority,” the opinion says, and the court added, “There is no such thing as a ‘constitutional’ major-questions claim,” SCOTUSblog reported. The justices also cited the government’s unrecoverable costs of “nearly half a million dollars” a day while work was on hold.

Analysis: the numbers behind the fight

The administration has said the area “is an area of high illegal entry,” and NBC News reported that it says 89,000 people have been detained trying to cross there in recent years. Cardone, in her Oct. 14 opinion, found that the Big Bend Sector “comprises over 25% of the U.S.-Mexico border” but accounts for only “between 0.3% and 2.2%” of migrants apprehended, SCOTUSblog reported. Government data show Big Bend has the fewest encounters of any section of the southern border, NBC News reported.

By The Boston Report’s calculation from Cardone’s figures, the sector’s share of border length is at least 11 times its share of apprehensions, even at the high end of her range. The Supreme Court’s order did not address whether the waivers are lawful on the merits, only whether a district court could hear this kind of claim.

Reaction from both sides

“This horrific decision clears the way for contractors to bulldoze pristine desert and dynamite canyon walls before the courts have even decided whether this destruction is legal,” said Laiken Jordahl of the Center for Biological Diversity, NBC News reported. DHS general counsel James Percival wrote on X: “When we filed in the Supreme Court, I called the district court’s order halting wall construction ‘as unprecedented as it is flawed.’ We just won 8-1.”

What comes next

The stay remains in effect pending the government’s petition for Supreme Court review, if it is timely filed, and ends automatically if the court denies review, according to the opinion. The administration, boosted by construction funding from Congress, aims to complete about 2,000 miles of steel panels, vehicle barriers and surveillance technology, NBC News reported. The ruling arrives as the White House reshapes its immigration team, with Stephen Miller named chief of staff. On the same day, the justices also agreed to hear a case that could limit suits against federal officers. Track the related legislative fights on our U.S. Congress tracker.

Sources

• Supreme Court of the United States: Mullin v. Friends of the Ruidosa Church, No. 26A560 (Nov. 9, 2026)
• SCOTUSblog: Supreme Court allows Trump administration to continue border wall construction
• NBC News: Supreme Court paves way for Trump to build a section of his border wall in the Big Bend area of Texas