President Donald Trump waves as he boards Air Force One at Morristown Municipal Airport, New Jersey, on Sunday, August 2, 2026, heading back to Washington, D.C. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin).
In a recent legal decision, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit that aimed to halt the Trump administration and the Department of Homeland Security’s plans to erect a “Smart Wall.” This advanced barrier, featuring cameras and sophisticated “detection technology,” is intended to span the U.S.-Mexico border along the Rio Grande in Texas.
Delivering his decision through an extensive 26-page document on Sunday, Senior U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton acknowledged the Presidio Municipal Development District’s “understandable concerns” regarding potential impacts on the “structural integrity” of local levee systems. However, purported breaches of the Rivers and Harbors Act and the Administrative Procedure Act did not suffice to grant a preliminary injunction against DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin.
The plaintiffs argued that the administration’s “robust enforcement efforts” in the Big Bend area negate the need for a “Smart Wall,” contending that the government’s justification rests on speculative fears that border crossings “may spike again in the future.”
The government’s description of the “Smart Wall,” cited in a footnote, characterizes it as comprising “a steel bollard wall, road infrastructure, detection technology, cameras, lighting, with additional features like waterborne barriers or a secondary wall in some sectors, forming a double-layer barrier.”
According to the judge, the plaintiffs made a key concession, that “actual construction of the ‘Smart Wall’ has not yet begun, and that the defendants are only preparing for such construction.”
“[T]he Court finds it unlikely, if not impossible, for the plaintiff to show that the defendants’ construction will likely cause irreparable harm due to its impact on the levee system because the plaintiff admits, as it must, that the defendants do not yet have a final design for their planned construction,” the ruling said.
“Accordingly, an irreparable harm finding would be based on nothing more than speculation considering the current record,” the judge added, writing “the Court is compelled to deny the plaintiff’s motion[.]”
Walton, a George W. Bush appointee, once read a redacted version of ex-special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia report during Trump’s first term, concluded the DOJ under then-AG Bill Barr “distorted” its findings, and ordered an explanation.
Once Walton got those answers, he reasoned that the DOJ improperly redacted sections of the Mueller report pursuant to the deliberative process privilege contained in Exemption 5 of the Freedom of Information Act, and ordered that information released before the 2020 election. At the same time, the judge said redactions of FBI witness reports or 302s fell within legal exemptions to the department’s obligations under FOIA.
Earlier that year, Walton expressed fear that the U.S. was becoming a “banana republic” under Trump.
“It’s just, it’s very disturbing that we’re in the mess that we’re in in that regard,” he said, commenting on the “fact that you got somebody at the top basically trying to dictate whether somebody should be prosecuted[.]”
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