Judge Gonzalo Curiel will
decide whether the Trump administration needs to observe environmental
regulations while constructing a border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border
The fate of President Donald
Trump's signature agenda item, a wall along the southern U.S. border, may be in
the hands of a judge who was at the center of a controversy during Trump's 2016
campaign.
U.S. District Judge Gonzalo
Curiel will preside over
a case involving three lawsuits that challenge the Trump administration's
construction of the wall.
Two years ago, while
campaigning, Trump said Curiel
could not act as an impartial judge when ruling on two class action suits
regarding Trump University, the president's for-profit college, because Curiel
was of Mexican heritage.
https://t.co/qpjUJ49Aqh
Curiel was born in the U.S. to
parents who immigrated from Mexico, and then became naturalized citizens.
The judge will decide whether
the Trump administration can use waivers, issued by Congress in 1996 and 2005,
that have allowed the government to bypass certain laws, including
environmental regulations, in the interest of border security projects. The
Department of Homeland Security has already waived 37 environmental laws just
for the construction of wall prototypes.
Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.),
who is party to one of the three lawsuits, argues that
the waivers are out of date and never took into account a potential border
wall. Other plaintiffs, including the state of California and several
conservation groups, argue that the construction of a wall would harm wildlife
in the area.
"Nobody is above the law.
Environmental laws were enacted to protect imperiled wildlife, delicate
landscapes, and the American public," Defenders of Wildlife, one of the
groups, said when
the case was mounted last year.
Curiel has never publicly
acknowledged the president's remarks about his ethnicity, and Gregory Vega, a
former colleague, told McClatchy that the incident "will not
impact him at all. He will follow the rule of law."
But on social media, Trump
critics relished the news that Curiel will play a role in deciding whether the
construction of a wall meant to keep people like his family out of the country,
will move forward.
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