Judge blocks border wall funding

A federal judge in Texas ruled on Tuesday that the Trump administration cannot divert $3.6 billion from the military to construct a wall along the U.S. southern border. U.S. District Judge David Briones said President Donald Trump’s national emergency declaration in January that justified using the funds violated a restriction authorized by Congress to limit border wall funding to $1.375 billion.

How will this affect Trump’s signature campaign promise? The White House is expected to appeal Tuesday’s ruling and has faced another challenge to wall funding earlier this year. In that case, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned an injunction issued by a federal judge in California that allowed the administration to use $2.5 billion in Pentagon funds to upgrade fencing.

Dig deeper: Read Mickey McLean’s report in The Sift about the high court’s ruling in the other case.