Judge Trevor McFadden sided with two ranchers from Arizona—a border state that's a battleground in the presidential race—who claimed that the Biden administration's halt on the border wall, which violated laws requiring an environmental review, caused concrete damage to the environment.
The case centers around whether the Biden administration violated the National Environmental Policy Act by not reviewing the potential environmental impact of halting construction of the border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, an action he took on his first day in office to fulfil a key campaign promise.
A Trump-appointed judge ruled last week in favor of two Arizona ranchers who argued that President Joe Biden's immigration policies caused environmental damage.
Republicans blamed Biden for a surge in migrant border crossings over the past few years, though border crossings dropped over the summer after he took executive action preventing migrants crossing the border illegally from seeking asylum.
In a ruling issued Friday, McFadden agreed that the Biden administration "repeatedly flouted long-standing environmental law" in its "haste to reverse its predecessor's border policies," and that those violations resulted in environmental damages for the ranchers, Steven Smith and Gail Getzwiller.
"The Court also finds that DHS's decisions to cancel all border wall construction and terminate MPP [Migrant Protection Protocols] substantially contributed to that influx in illegal immigration."
Immigration remains one of Trump's strongest issues, though some recent surveys suggest Harris is cutting into his border advantage.
https://www.newsweek.com/trump-judge-biden-border-environment-1962731
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