Supreme Court to take up Trump border wall spending, asylum enforcement

A federal appeals court ruled in June that the government improperly diverted $2.5 billion of the Pentagon's counter-drug program money to build more than 100 miles of border wall.

The U.S. Supreme Court said Monday that it will hear a challenge to the Trump administration's use of Pentagon money to build the southern border wall and also its appeal of a ruling that blocked the sending of asylum applicants to Mexico while they wait for their appeals to be heard.

A federal appeals court ruled in June that the government improperly diverted $2.5 billion of Pentagon counter-drug program money to build more than 100 miles of border wall. The court said only Congress could approve such a transfer.

President Donald Trump ordered the use of the Defense Department money last year after a fight over his budget that led to a partial government shutdown. It ended after Democrats approved money for border wall construction, but nowhere near what the president wanted.

The wall's opponents, including the Sierra Club and some border communities, said the president cannot spend more than Congress has authorized or use the money in a manner inconsistent with the purposes of appropriations already made. Their lawsuit also said an emergency declaration law invoked by the president allows use of Pentagon construction funds only to support the military.

"There is no emergency requiring the use of the armed forces along the U.S.-Mexico border, and construction of a border wall is not necessary to support such use of the armed forces," the suit said. A separate law passed by Congress allows the use of Defense Department support only for building facilities needed to block drug smuggling at the border, they said.