President Donald Trump gained some ground in his fight to progress border wall building, with two favorable federal court rulings in early January—one that allows use of $3.6 billion in diverted military construction funds to pay for barrier work along the southern border, and the other that enables a halted privately financed wall project in Texas to resume.
The New Orleans appellate court on Jan. 8 allowed construction to continue on border wall contracts in California, New Mexico,Texas and Arizona, lifting a lower court’s halt to work that said Trump’s emergency declaration to use the milcon funds violated federal funding rules.