Missouri, Texas Sue Biden Administration for Stalling on Border Wall

Steven D. Schwinn, University of Illinois Chicago School of Law

Missouri and Texas sued the Biden Administration for stalling on wall construction along the southern border. The states claim that Congress appropriated funding for wall construction--and only wall construction--and that the Biden Administration's stall violates the separation of powers, federal appropriations law, and federal administrative law.

The states argue that Congress appropriated $1.37 billion to the Department of Homeland Security in FY 2021 and FY 2020 for "construction of a barrier system along the southwest border" and specified that these funds "shall only be available for barrier systems." They say that when the Biden administration delayed spending the money for wall construction, it impermissibly intruded on Congress's appropriations power in violation of the separation of powers, failed to enforce the law (under the Take Care Clause), and violated federal appropriations law and federal administrative law. The states ask the court to compel the administration to spend the appropriated funds for "construction of a barrier system along the southwest border."

The Biden Administration, for its part, halted wall construction and used appropriated funding to bring wall construction projects into compliance with federal environmental law and federal statutory community-stakeholder-consultation requirements. (DHS had waived these requirements in the Trump Administration. The Biden Administration DHS said that it wouldn't waive them.) The GAO ruled this past summer that this didn't amount to an illegal "impoundment" under the Impoundment Control Act; instead, it was a "programmatic delay." (The states' complaint repeatedly mischaracterizes the GAO opinion.) By this reckoning, the Biden Administration's halt isn't a violation of law; instead, it's a move to comply with law--environmental and stakeholder-consultation requirements that the Trump Administration waived. The Biden Administration also plans to use some of the funding to remediate the environmental damage wrought by wall construction in the Trump years.

Before the case even gets to the merits, however, standing may be an issue. The states claim that the Biden Administration's halt on wall construction leads to greater unauthorized immigration, which causes them to incur costs in issuing drivers licenses, providing public education, and providing health care. It's not at all clear that they can plausibly allege that the Biden Administration's halt causes these harms, and that an order to re-start building would remedy them, as required for Article III standing.