Brawl at the wall Trump declares emergency

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump declared a national emergency along the southern border yesterday and predicted his administration would end up defending it all the way to the Supreme Court.

That was the only thing Mr Trump said that produced near-universal agreement.

The American Civil Liberties Union announced its intention to sue after the White House released the text of Mr Trump’s declaration that the “current situation at the southern border presents a border security and humanitarian crisis that threatens core national security interests and constitutes a national emergency”.

Non-profit watchdog group Public Citizen filed a suit later, urging the US District Court for the District of Columbia to “bar Trump and the US Department of Defence from using the declaration and funds appropriated for other purposes to build a border wall”.

House Speaker Nancy Pe- losi and several Democratic state attorneys-general have said they might go to court.

The coming legal fight seems likely to hinge on two main issues: Can the President declare a national emergency to build a border wall in the face of Congress’s refusal to give him all the money he wanted and, under the federal law Mr Trump invoked in his declaration, can the Defence Department take money from congressionally approved military construction projects to pay for wall construction?

After weeks of publicly ruminating whether to act, Mr Trump’s signature on the declaration set in motion a quick march to the courthouse.

Protesters outside a New York City hotel bearing Mr Trump’s name were taken into custody yesterday for chanting and holding signs with slogans such as “Abolish ICE” and “Trump Is The Emergency”.

Mr Trump developed the hotel, but it is owned by others.