The decision late Sunday marks a victory for the Trump administration as it races ahead with efforts to build a $46 billion wall along the U.S.-Mexico border from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico.
The town of Presidio, with a population of about 3,200 people, argued the wall could cause flooding.
But the judge said in his ruling Sunday that they were unlikely to succeed on the merits of the case.
“For the foregoing reasons, despite the understandable concerns expressed by the plaintiff regarding the harms it and the plaintiff’s residents might sustain by the potential construction of the Smart Wall, the Court is compelled to deny the plaintiff’s motion for a stay,” wrote Judge Reggie B. Walton.
DHS has been charging forward with its wall-building plan with senior administration officials saying a first layer of the structure will be done by next year.
The government has argued that there is no final plan for where the border wall will go or how it will be built. And the administration has maintained that it has the authority given to it by Congress to waive a vast swath of regulations to build the wall as it seeks to get the number of people crossing the border every day to zero.
In his ruling, the judge bolstered that argument, saying that it was clear "that Congress did not intend to limit the Secretary of DHS’s waiver authority."
The government is also facing another lawsuit in Texas where an environmental group and a church preservation group have teamed up to oppose DHS’s plans.
