The Supreme Court on Monday cleared the way for the Trump administration to proceed with a wall construction project along the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the only justice to note her dissent.

The decision lifts a preliminary injunction that had stopped the project while litigation continued. The high court majority concluded that the lower court was wrong to halt the government action because it likely lacked jurisdiction to do so.

At the center of the dispute is the administration’s effort to waive environmental and conservation laws to facilitate construction. The project concerns a region that the administration called the “Big Bend Sector.”

The Homeland Security secretary described that region as “an area of high illegal entry” requiring additional protection. The requested waivers were intended to allow construction to move forward despite the environmental and conservation laws challenged in the case.

The administration’s action prompted a lawsuit from three plaintiffs with different connections to the area. They included a river guide, an environmental nonprofit and a nonprofit dedicated to preserving a historic church in Ruidosa, Texas.

The plaintiffs argued that the Homeland Security secretary had exceeded his authority by seeking to waive the laws. A federal district court in West Texas agreed to grant them a preliminary injunction that halted the project.

The Trump administration then sought relief from the Supreme Court. Its request asked the justices to lift the lower court injunction even as the broader litigation over the secretary’s authority continued.

In granting that request, the Supreme Court focused on the lower court’s likely lack of jurisdiction and the competing interests presented by the case. The unsigned opinion also weighed the government’s asserted interest against the harms identified by the plaintiffs.

The court said that the government’s interest “outweighs any aesthetic, recreational, and environmental harm alleged” by the groups and individual challenging the project. That conclusion allowed the administration’s construction plans to proceed while the dispute remains active.

The plaintiffs had unsuccessfully urged the justices not to grant the government’s request. They warned that allowing construction to begin would produce lasting consequences for a landscape containing parks and a federally designated river corridor.

Granting the request, they said, “would result in the permanent alteration of an irreplaceable landscape that includes Big Bend National Park, Big Bend Ranch State Park, and nearly 200 miles of the congressionally designated Rio Grande Wild and Scenic River corridor.”

Those concerns did not persuade the majority to keep the preliminary injunction in place. The court instead accepted the administration’s argument that the project should not remain blocked while additional litigation proceeds.

The justices explained their reasoning through an unsigned “per curiam” opinion. The court has been using that form to handle some recent emergency litigation rather than resolving such requests solely through unexplained orders.

Jackson, a Biden appointee, was the only member of the court to publicly note disagreement with Monday’s action. She stated only that she would have denied the administration’s application and provided no explanation for her position.

The ruling leaves the plaintiffs to continue their challenge without the preliminary protection they secured from the federal district court in West Texas. Meanwhile, the administration has the court’s permission to advance its wall construction project in the Big Bend region.

The immediate result is a significant victory for the Trump administration in its effort to build along the Texas border. It also leaves Jackson alone in formally opposing the court’s decision to let construction proceed during the continuing legal fight.

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