A federal judge has sided with an Arizona rancher who claimed that the Biden administration’s reversal of Trump-era border policies violated a bedrock environmental law.
In a ruling issued Friday, Judge Trevor McFadden of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia found that the Department of Homeland Security should have conducted a National Environmental Policy Act review before acting in 2021 to cancel border wall construction and end the “Remain in Mexico” policy that turned away tens of thousands of migrants.
“Presidential administrations enjoy significant discretion in the enforcement of our Nation’s immigration laws and protection of our borders,” wrote McFadden, a Trump appointee. “But this latitude does not license violations of other laws.”
Under NEPA, agencies like DHS are required to take a “hard look” at the environmental impact of major federal actions. McFadden ruled in favor of rancher Steven Chance Smith, who claimed that — as a result of the Biden administration’s policy reversals — migrants trespassed onto his property, stealing water, and leaving trash that his cattle ate and died from.
