A section of the U.S. and Mexico border wall is seen in Santa Teresa, New Mexico, on Monday, October 21, 2019. Photographer Cate Dingley/Bloomberg 
Read More: Trump Plan to Divert Military Budget to Border Wall Is Rejected
Briones found that because the administration’s actions “are unlawful and the people’s representatives -- Congress -- declined to augment the border wall project as defendants attempt, the public interest would be served by halting them.”
The judge said he isn’t blocking the president from using $2.5 billion in Pentagon funds earmarked for a counter-drug program, consistent with a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in July that let the administration move forward with building 100 miles of border fencing. Trump praised the high court’s ruling at the time.
The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
“Today’s order affirms that the president is not a king and that our courts are willing to check him when he oversteps his bounds,” said Kristy Parker, a lawyer for Protect Democracy, which represents the county of El Paso and a human rights group that brought the legal challenge.
About That Wall Trump Said Mexico Would Be Paying For: QuickTake
U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, called Tuesday’s ruling “a victory for the rule of law.”
“Once again, the courts have resoundingly ruled against the President’s attempt to negate our system of separation of powers, which is the genius of our Constitution, by assaulting Congress’s exclusive constitutional power of the purse,” Pelosi said in a statement.
The U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco is weighing separate challenges to the president’s wall funding plan brought by a coalition of states and the Sierra Club.
The case is El Paso County, Texas v. Trump, 19-cv-00066, U.S. District Court, Western District of Texas (El Paso).