President Donald Trump gestures as he boards Air Force One at Morristown Municipal Airport, in Morristown, N.J., Sunday, Aug. 2, 2026, en route to return to Washington (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin).
A federal judge rejected a lawsuit that tried to stop the Trump administration and the Department of Homeland Security from constructing a "Smart Wall," equipped with cameras and "detection technology," at the U.S.-Mexico border along the Rio Grande in Texas.
Senior U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton, in a 26-page opinion on Sunday, said the Presidio Municipal Development District raised "understandable concerns" about the impact on "structural integrity" of its levee systems, but alleged violations of the Rivers and Harbors Act and the Administrative Procedure Act were not enough to win a preliminary injunction against DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin.
The plaintiffs had claimed that the administration's "robust enforcement efforts" in the Big Bend region showed there was no need for a "Smart Wall," asserting the government only speculates that border encounters "may spike again in the future."
The "Smart Wall," said a footnote quoting the government, includes "a steel bollard wall, along with roads, detection technology, cameras, lighting and in some cases waterborne barrier or a secondary wall — creating a double-layer barrier."
According to the judge, the plaintiffs made a key concession, that "actual construction of the 'Smart Wall' has not yet begun, and that the defendants are only preparing for such construction."
"[T]he Court finds it unlikely, if not impossible, for the plaintiff to show that the defendants' construction will likely cause irreparable harm due to its impact on the levee system because the plaintiff admits, as it must, that the defendants do not yet have a final design for their planned construction," the ruling said.
"Accordingly, an irreparable harm finding would be based on nothing more than speculation considering the current record," the judge added, writing "the Court is compelled to deny the plaintiff's motion[.]"
Walton, a George W. Bush appointee, once read a redacted version of ex-special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia report during Trump's first term, concluded the DOJ under then-AG Bill Barr "distorted" its findings, and ordered an explanation.
Once Walton got those answers, he reasoned that the DOJ improperly redacted sections of the Mueller report pursuant to the deliberative process privilege contained in Exemption 5 of the Freedom of Information Act, and ordered that information released before the 2020 election. At the same time, the judge said redactions of FBI witness reports or 302s fell within legal exemptions to the department's obligations under FOIA.
Earlier that year, Walton expressed fear that the U.S. was becoming a "banana republic" under Trump.
"It's just, it's very disturbing that we're in the mess that we're in in that regard," he said, commenting on the "fact that you got somebody at the top basically trying to dictate whether somebody should be prosecuted[.]"