US Environmentalists Hope New Congress Will Block Building Of Border Wall - Advocacy Group

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 19th December, 2018) US advocacy groups presenting their case in court hope the new Congress will help them by drafting laws to block US government spending on the proposed border wall with Mexico, Center for Biological Diversity senior counsel Howard Crystal told Sputnik.

"Hopefully this new Congress will be [questioning] whether the Secretary [of Homeland Security] should be wasting money by building walls which are useless and very damaging to the environment," Crystal said on Tuesday, adding that the issue was "a high priority."

Crystal was speaking at a Federal court hearing in Washington, DC on Tuesday in which the Center for Biological Diversity, the Southwest Environmental Center, the Defenders of Wildlife and the Animal Legal Defense Fund challenged the legality of the Trump administration's border wall before federal judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Jackson heard arguments from both sides during the proceedings and could issue her ruling at any time following the hearing.

"We are certainly hopeful" about the outcome of the hearing, Crystal said. He said motion challenged the US government's claim that Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen "will have unlimited authority to build all walls... anywhere, which is what they are claiming."

The lawsuit challenges the Trump administration's use of a long-expired waiver to sweep aside 25 laws that protect clean air, clean water, public lands and endangered wildlife, the Center for Biological Diversity said in a press release, but the lawsuit argues that the waiver authority granted by Congress a decade ago no longer applies.