One of Donald Trump’s biggest campaign promises, when he was first running for office, was that he was going to build this great huge wall along the southern U.S. border to keep immigrants out of the country. He promised that Mexico would pay for this wall. That didn’t happen. Yet, his supporters bought it all up.
After failing to get Mexico to pay for this wall, Trump turned to Congress. As expected, he did not receive the funds he wanted to build his wall. His last resort was to use military funds to build his wall. On Friday, an appeals court ruled that plan to be “unlawful.”
According to NBC News, a federal appeals court panel ruled on Friday that the Trump administration does not have the authority to use military funding to pay for the construction of the wall.
A 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel found that diverting $2.5 billion Congress had appropriated for the military violated the Constitution and is unlawful.
The executive branch “lacked independent constitutional authority to authorize the transfer of funds,” the ruling said. “These funds were appropriated for other purposes, and the transfer amounted to ‘drawing funds from the Treasury without authorization by statute and thus violating the Appropriations Clause.’ Therefore, the transfer of funds here was unlawful.”
Trump tried to obtain military funds after he declared a national emergency at the border in order to access the money from the Pentagon.
The U.S. district court judge, Haywood S. Gilliam Jr., found the administration failed to prove the money was needed for “unforeseen military requirements.”
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