Nature Group’s Injunction Challenges Trump's Arizona Border Wall

TUCSON, AZ — Three conservation groups, including Tucson’s Center for Biological Diversity, filed a federal court injunction Tuesday, in an attempt to halt construction of a border wall that would cut through national wildlife refuges in Arizona. The injunction aims to stop Trump’s border wall’s erection until after a ruling is rendered on the group’s lawsuit filed last month, which questioned the Trump administration’s alleged waiving of “dozens” of public health and environmental laws to get Arizona’s wall built faster.

“It’s senseless to let bulldozers rip a permanent scar through our borderlands’ wildlife refuges and national monuments before the court decides whether the waiver is legal,” wrote Center for Biological Diversity attorney Jean Su in a press release. “Trump’s ignoring laws and diverting funds to build this destructive border wall. His grotesque barrier would destroy some of the border’s most spectacular and biologically diverse places. We’ll do everything in our power to stop that.” The other two organizations in the trifecta of conservation groups behind the July suit and yesterday’s injunction are the Defenders of Wildlife in Washington, D.C. and Cotati, California’s Animal Legal Defense Fund.

The injunction pertains to Pima County’s Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Pima and Yuma counties’ Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge and Cochise County’s San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area. The three conservation groups’ July joint pending lawsuit and preliminary injunction list the defendants as Kevin McAleenan as Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Homeland Security itself. The conservation groups claim the DHS overstepped its jurisdiction in waiving the National Environmental Policy Act, Endangered Species Act and other laws that safeguard borderland wildlife, public lands and clean water and air.

“These most recent waivers of vital environmental and animal-protection laws demonstrate the administration’s continued disregard for wildlife, including the most fragile species that could be pushed to extinction by these projects,” asserts Stephen Wells, Animal Legal Defense Fund Executive Director.

“If the wall is constructed through these spectacular landscapes, it will disrupt migration for animals like the Mexican gray wolf, the jaguar, the Sonoran pronghorn and the bighorn sheep. It will tear through lands so precious that Congress chose to protect them for all Americans’ posterity and enjoyment. Defenders will continue to fight to stop this abuse,” said Bryan Bird, Defenders of Wildlife’s southwest representative.

The July lawsuit and yesterday’s injunction are not the trio of conservation groups’ only border-related legal actions to stop wall construction. In February, they filed a lawsuit against Trump, Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan, Secretary of the Department of Treasury Steven Mnuchin, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and Secretary of the Interior David Berhnardt, questioning the legitimacy of Trump’s classifying the border situation as an “emergency.”

The trifecta filed its first lawsuit pertaining to the Arizona border wall in 2017, suing to require a detailed borderlands environmental-impact analysis from the Trump administration.

All the group’s legal actions are still pending.