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A federal district judge in El Paso, Texas, David Briones has blocked Trump administration from spending 3.6 billion U.S dollars military funds on his long-promised border wall. The judge issued a permanent injunction that stops the Trump administration from using funds formerly set aside for a string of military construction projects. The move is considered a major setback for Trump, who has made building a barrier along the U.S-Mexico border a signature issue. The U.S Justice Department will reportedly appeal against the current decision. The ruling from Briones is the latest move in the long-running saga over a central plank of Trump’s election platform. Democrats in the U.S Congress declined to approve the amount of money the president needed. The U.S President needed 5.7 billion U.S dollars but just allocated 1.38 billion U.S dollars to the wall in the month of January.

Trump also declared that the situation along the U.S-Mexico border a national emergency in the month of February. It opened the way for Trump to use money from other sources, instead of those Congress had offered him. The U.S Defense secretary Mark Esper appropriated the 3.6 billion U.S dollars of Pentagon funds in September. But, the judge Briones ruled the emergency proclamation unlawful in October because it was against the outline driven by the U.S Congress in its January spending bill. The recent block was made permanent. The Judge said, “That concern can’t override the public interest in the executive branch complying with the law.

A lawyer for the Protect Democracy group, Kristy Parker said the order affirmed that “The president is not a king and that our courts are willing to check him when he oversteps his bounds”. The administration of Donald Trump had planned to use the Pentagon funds for 11 border wall projects in California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. It has been considered the longest and most expensive by far would have extended 52 miles in the area of Laredo, Texas, at an estimated cost of 1.27 billion U.S dollars. The ruling of Briones doesn’t affect a further 2.5 billion U.S dollars of defense department cash that the Supreme Court said in a July ruling that Trump could spend on the wall.