All SCOTUS justices say Trump is 'exceedingly likely' to win border wall fight — except one

Main: A portion of border wall is under construction in the Big Bend region, Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2026, near Sierra Blanca, Texas (AP Photo/John Locher). Right inset: President Donald Trump smiles after speaking at a campaign rally at the Salina Regional Airport, Sunday, Nov. 1, 2026, in Salina, Kan. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel).

The U.S. Supreme Court in an 8-1 per curiam decision on Monday — over the objection of only Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson — allowed President Donald Trump's administration to continue construction of a border wall in Big Bend National Park.

"The Government is exceedingly likely to prevail on its argument that the District Court lacked jurisdiction to adjudicate respondents' so-called major-questions-doctrine claim," the majority said, staying U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone's injunction from early October.

The case centers on Section 102 of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA), granting the DHS secretary broad authority to construct border barriers and waive statutory requirements. Crucially, IIRIRA strictly limits district court jurisdiction to claims alleging a "violation of the Constitution of the United States."

The DOJ argued in its stay application that the Friends of the Ruidosa Church plaintiffs made a "major-questions claim" that "borders on frivolous" and which the judge accepted as a "constitutional challenge" to block the government's "expeditious" construction.

The major questions doctrine has served to limit the executive branch from interpreting vague legislative language in a way that would give the president power to effectuate sweeping changes on a national level without the approval of Congress.

But eight justices said on Monday that "[t]here is no such thing as a 'constitutional' major-questions claim." Jackson, who would have denied the stay application, stood alone.

The DOJ had called the injunction a "baseless" block on a "major portion" of the border wall to address an "'area of high illegal entry' requiring additional border barriers[.]"

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The Friends of the Ruidosa Church, seeking to preserve a historic church in Presidio County, said the stakes were enormous for an "irreplaceable landscape" facing "permanent alteration."

"As the district court recognized, if construction proceeds and Respondents ultimately prevail, this beloved landscape and Respondents' livelihoods, recreation, and enjoyment 'will have been forever altered,'" a response brief warned.

No Big Bend Wall communications director Hillary Pierce echoed those concerns in a statement on the Supreme Court's stay, noting the justices haven't "answered why the government is building a wall in one of the least-crossed stretches of the southern border."

"Once the bulldozers cut through a canyon or a family's ranch gets walled off from the Rio Grande, there's no undoing it. This isn't the end of our fight. The justices didn't decide whether Big Bend actually qualifies as an area of high illegal entry," said Pierce, a board member of the nonprofit group Conserve Big Bend, which is separately suing in Washington, D.C., with Texas landowners.

"That matters because the administration used that designation to justify building the wall and bypassing environmental protections," Pierce added. "The government's own numbers show Big Bend has the fewest Border Patrol apprehensions along the southern border. That's exactly what we're challenging in our lawsuit in Washington."