Legal hurdles for border wall

State of emergency declaration met with challenges

Defiant in the wake of a stinging budget defeat, United States President Donald Trump yesterday declared a national emergency at the US-Mexico border, moving to secure more money for his long-promised wall by exercising a broad interpretation of his presidential powers that is certain to draw stiff legal challenges.

Trump painted a dark picture of the border as “a major entry point for criminals, gang members, and illicit narcotics” and one that threatens “core national security interests”. Overall, though, illegal border crossings are down from a high of 1.6 million in 2000.

His declaration triggered outrage from Democrats, unease among some Republicans and flew in the face of years of GOP complaints President Barack Obama had over-reached in his use of executive authority.

Trump signed the declaration to justify diverting billions of dollars from military construction and other purposes after Congress approved only a fraction of the money he had demanded. The standoff over border funding had led to the longest government shutdown in history. To avoid another, Trump reluctantly signed a funding bill yesterday that included just $1.4 billion of the $5.7b he had demanded for the wall.

Trump forecasted the fate of the order as it winds its way through the legal system before potentially ending up at the Supreme Court.

“Sadly, we’ll be sued and sadly it will go through a process and happily we’ll win, I think,” Trump said.

Within hours, nonprofit watchdog group Public Citizen filed suit in federal court and the American Civil Liberties Union announced it too would file a suit.

“By the president’s very own admission in the Rose Garden, there is no national emergency. He just grew impatient and frustrated with Congress, and decided to move along his promise for a border wall ‘faster’,” ACLU executive director Anthony Romero said. Some Democratic state attorneys general have also threatened to go to court over the decision.

The top two Democrats in Congress said they’d use “every remedy available” to oppose what they cast as an unlawful measure.

“The President’s actions clearly violate the Congress’s exclusive power of the purse, which our founders enshrined in the Constitution,” House speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate minority leader Charles Schumer said.

Trump defended his use of an emergency declaration, saying other presidents had done the same. They have, but not to pay for projects that Congress wouldn’t support.