A US judge has sided with President Donald Trump’s administration and thrown out a legal bid to stop controversial plans for a border wall with Mexico.
The state of California and environmental groups complained that the proposed wall violated environmental laws.
But Judge Gonzalo Curiel rejected the lawsuit, saying the government was not exceeding its legal authority.
The lawsuit filed in a San Diego federal court alleged that Trump’s proposed wall violates federal environmental standards, as well as constitutional provisions regarding the separation of powers and states’ rights.
It also asked for the construction to be blocked until the government demonstrated compliance with environmental laws, says a BBC report.
In his ruling on the wall, Judge Curiel cited ‘fellow Indiana native Chief Justice [John] Roberts’ to argue that it is not the court’s place to make policy judgments.
The ruling was welcomed by the US Department of Justice.
“Border security is paramount to stemming the flow of illegal immigration that contributes to rising violent crime and to the drug crisis, and undermines national security,” spokesman Devin O’Malley said.
However, Brian Segee, a senior lawyer at the Centre for Biological Diversity, said they intended to appeal against the ‘disappointing ruling’.
“The Trump administration has completely overreached its authority in its rush to build this destructive, senseless wall,” he said.
Californian Attorney General Xavier Becerra accused the Trump administration of “ignoring laws it doesn't like in order to resuscitate a campaign talking point of building a wall on our southern border”.
The border wall with Mexico was one of Trump's most controversial election pledges.
Although a popular project with many of his supporters, it aroused widespread anger, not least in Mexico itself.
Eight prototypes for the wall were completed in San Diego in October and construction has already begun on a 30ft- (9.m) high barrier in Calexico, California.
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump accused Curiel of bias, based on the Indiana-born judge’s Mexican ancestry, according to the Reuters.
At the time, Curiel had been overseeing a separate lawsuit involving Trump University.
