Press Releases
07/17/2023
Attorney General Tong Announces Settlement Regarding Unlawful Construction of Trump Border Wall
(Hartford, CT) – As part of a coalition of 18 states, Attorney General William Tong today announced a settlement of lawsuits over the unlawful construction of border wall projects that occurred during the Trump Administration. California-led coalitions of states, including Connecticut, sued the Trump Administration on two occasions — in 2019 and 2020 — alleging that it was illegally diverting taxpayer funds authorized for other purposes to construct a border wall in Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and California. As part of today’s settlement, the Biden Administration agrees to cease construction of border barriers with the challenged funds and take several important measures to remediate the environmental harm caused by the construction. The Biden Administration also confirms in the settlement agreement that it has restored funding for military construction projects in the plaintiff states. The Sierra Club and Southern Borders Communities Coalition, nonprofit organizations that also sued the Trump Administration, are settling their claims for these actions as well.
“The Trump border wall was a vapid campaign slogan and a waste of money that did nothing to address our country’s real immigration challenges. It was also an unconstitutional seizure of Congressionally-authorized military funding. This settlement is the final nail in the coffin to this xenophobic vanity project. It redirects billions of dollars in unlawfully diverted military funding back to the real, serious uses Congress intended them and restores needless harm to sensitive natural resources and endangered species. This was among the first major national legal challenges I brought when I first became Attorney General in 2019, and I thank the Biden Administration and my multistate partners who worked diligently over many, many months to resolve this ugly chapter in our history,” said Attorney General Tong.
The coalition of states secured two District Court judgments declaring President Donald J. Trump’s diversion of funds for border wall construction unlawful and enjoining further construction of the barriers. The Ninth Circuit affirmed both judgments. On a 5-4 vote, in 2019 the United States Supreme Court allowed the construction to proceed while the litigation was pending without ruling on the legality of the transfers or construction. Upon taking office, President Joe Biden issued a Proclamation that ceased all construction of the border wall proposed by the Trump Administration. In response, the Supreme Court sent the cases back to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
Among the settlement terms are the following:
- The Department of Homeland Security will provide $25 million toward the acquisition of conservation property to offset some of the border wall’s environmental impacts.
- The Department of Homeland Security will install small and large wildlife passages in the border barrier system for several endangered species. If exigent circumstances arise or border security operations demand it, the Department of Homeland Security may install gates to enable those passages to be closed.
- The Department of Homeland Security will provide $1.1 million to fund programs that monitor several federally endangered species, including the Peninsular Bighorn Sheep, Sonoran Desert Pronghorn, Mexican Gray Wolf, ocelot, and jaguar.
- The parties confirm that $427,296,000 in funding for military construction projects in the plaintiff states of California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maryland, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Virginia, and Wisconsin has been restored. Exact amounts per state can be found on page 7 of the settlement agreement.
In announcing today’s settlement, Attorney General Tong joins the attorneys general of California, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Vermont.
A copy of the settlement agreement can be found here.
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Media Contact:
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