--- title: Supreme Court Clears the Way for Trump Administration to Tap Pentagon Funds for Border Wall description: The Supreme Court action means the Administration can tap the funds to build sections of a border wall with Mexico canonical: https://time.com/5636777/pentagon-funds-border-wall/ author: TIME Staff article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2019-07-26T22:56:32.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-24T00:06:00.513Z article:section: Politics og:title: High Court Clears the Way for Trump Administration to Use Pentagon Funds for Border Wall og:description: The funds can be tapped to begin work on sections of the border wall with Mexico og:url: https://time.com/5636777/pentagon-funds-border-wall/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt820b91d4a7847d35/698a0080656a3fd9edbd8a50/border-mexico-funding.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: Views Of A Mexico Border Town As President Trump Holds Press Tour Of New Wall og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: High Court Clears the Way for Trump Administration to Use Pentagon Funds for Border Wall twitter:description: The funds can be tapped to begin work on sections of the border wall with Mexico twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt820b91d4a7847d35/698a0080656a3fd9edbd8a50/border-mexico-funding.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Supreme Court Clears the Way for Trump Administration to Use Pentagon Funds for Border Wall > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Jul 26, 2019 10:56 PM UTC  Mexican Federal Police patrol along a fence ahead of U.S. President Donald Trump's visit to Calexico, California, across from the U.S.-Mexico border in Mexicali, Mexico, on Friday, April 5, 2019. Mexican Federal Police patrol along a fence ahead of U.S. President Donald Trump's visit to Calexico, California, across from the U.S.-Mexico border in Mexicali, Mexico, on Friday, April 5, 2019. Bloomberg—Bloomberg via Getty Images by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Jul 26, 2019 10:56 PM UTC (WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court has cleared the way for the Trump administration to tap Pentagon funds to build sections of a border wall with Mexico. The Supreme Court said Friday that it would lift a freeze on the money put in place by a lower court. The Supreme Court’s action means the Trump administration can tap the funds and begin work on four contracts it has awarded. Four liberal justices wouldn’t have allowed construction to start. A trial court initially froze the funds in May and an appeals court kept that freeze in place earlier this month. The freeze had prevented the government from tapping approximately $2.5 billion in Defense Department money to replace existing sections of barrier in Arizona, California and New Mexico with more robust fencing. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5636777/pentagon-funds-border-wall/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5636777/pentagon-funds-border-wall/"},"headline":"Supreme Court Clears the Way for Trump Administration to Use Pentagon Funds for Border Wall","datePublished":"2019-07-26T22:56:32.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-24T00:06:00.513Z","description":"The Supreme Court action means the Administration can tap the funds to build sections of a border wall with Mexico","url":"https://time.com/5636777/pentagon-funds-border-wall/","keywords":["Donald Trump","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt820b91d4a7847d35/698a0080656a3fd9edbd8a50/border-mexico-funding.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt820b91d4a7847d35/698a0080656a3fd9edbd8a50/border-mexico-funding.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Views Of A Mexico Border Town As President Trump Holds Press Tour Of New Wall","caption":"Views Of A Mexico Border Town As President Trump Holds Press Tour Of New Wall","creditText":"Bloomberg—Bloomberg via Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5636777/pentagon-funds-border-wall/","name":"Supreme Court Clears the Way for Trump Administration to Use Pentagon Funds for Border Wall"}}]}] ```