Trump Border Wall: First Lawsuit Filed

It was only a matter of time but the first lawsuit to target the plan by the Trump Administration to build a "great wall" across the United States border with Mexico has been filed. The Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity filed the suit Wednesday in federal court. Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva (D-AZ) joined the suit as an individual.

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The suit, which names the Department Homeland Security and it's bureau of Customs and Border Protection, asks the court to order federal agencies to conduct an in-depth investigation of the proposed wall's environmental impact.

"Trump's border wall will divide and destroy the incredible communities and wild landscapes along the border," said Kierán Suckling, the Center’s executive director. "Endangered species like jaguars and ocelots don’t observe international boundaries and should not be sacrificed for unnecessary border militarization.

"Their survival and recovery depends on being able to move long distances across the landscape and repopulate places on both sides of the border where they’ve lived for thousands of years."

The lawsuit wants a judge to require the departments to prepare a supplemental "programmatic environmental impact statement" for the proposal.

The suit points out that the administration's proposal involves not just a wall but also road construction, off-road vehicle patrols, installation of high-intensity lighting, construction of base camps and checkpoints, and other activities.

The center says that activities will "significantly impact the borderlands environment stretching from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico, which is home to millions of people, endangered species like jaguars and Mexican gray wolves."

It will also affect protected federal lands like Big Bend National Park and Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, they say.

"American environmental laws are some of the oldest and strongest in the world, and they should apply to the borderlands just as they do everywhere else,” Grijalva said. "These laws exist to protect the health and well-being of our people, our wildlife, and the places they live.

"Trump's wall — and his fanatical approach to our southern border — will do little more than perpetuate human suffering while irrevocably damaging our public lands and the wildlife that depend on them."

Grijalva, whose district - the Arizona Third - is the largest in Arizona, includes 300 miles of the border with Mexico.

READ THE SUIT:

Photo of Trump courtesy The Trump Organization; photo of jaguar courtesy Center for Biological Diversity.