Texas and Missouri sue Biden administration over its plans to halt funding border wall

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The lawsuit, filed in US District Court docket for the Southern District of Texas, argues that President Joe Biden did not have the authority to refuse to spend funds Congress licensed below the Trump administration mandating the development of the border wall.

Due to this fact, the states argue, the Division of Homeland Safety acted with out authority in implementing Biden’s January 20 proclamation to pause wall development, “together with cancelling contracts entered into for the aim of constructing the border wall.”

“The President and his businesses could not unilaterally override duly enacted appropriations payments to meet a marketing campaign promise,” the lawsuit states.

CNN has reached out to the Division of Homeland Safety for remark.

The states declare that the Biden administration’s refusal to spend congressional appropriations on the wall permits extra migrants to enter and stay in Missouri and Texas, leading to elevated prices to subject driver’s licenses, present public schooling, present well being care and course of and incarcerate individuals within the states’ felony justice methods.

“Dismantling border-security measures reminiscent of development of the border wall causes Missouri and Texas to incur unrecoverable prices in issuing driver’s licenses, offering schooling, and administering well being care,” it states.

The states are asking the court docket to search out the termination of funding illegal and compel the spending of funds.

Earlier this month, the administration canceled a slate of border wall contracts — within the Laredo and Rio Grande Valley sectors — the most recent within the ongoing effort to cancel contracts geared towards constructing wall alongside the US-Mexico border.

In late July, US Customs and Border Safety terminated two border wall contracts within the Laredo sector that cowl roughly 31 miles.

CNN’s Priscilla Alvarez contributed to this report.

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