COALITION OF STATES
SUES TRUMP OVER DECLARATION OF NATIONAL-EMERGENCY
WASHINGTON - A coalition of 16 states filed a federal lawsuit Monday to block President Donald Trump’s plan to build a border wall without permission from Congress, arguing that the president’s decision to declare a national emergency is unconstitutional.
The lawsuit, brought by states with Democratic governors except for one, Maryland - seeks a preliminary injunction that would prevent the president from acting on his emergency declaration while the case plays out in the courts.
The complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, a San Franciscobased court whose judges have ruled against an array of other Trump administration policies, including on immigration and the environment.
Accusing the president of “an unconstitutional and unlawful scheme,” the suit says the states are trying “to protect their residents, natural resources, and economic interests from President Donald J. Trump’s flagrant disregard of fundamental separation of powers principles engrained in the United States Constitution.”
The complaint, filed by the Attorneys General of nearly a third of the states and representing tens millions of Americans, immediately became the heavyweight among a rapid outpouring of opposition to the president’s emergency declaration. In the White House Rose Garden on Friday, Trump announced that he was instituting a national emergency at the U.s.-mexico border because Congress did not provide enough money for a wall that has stood as one of the most enduring promises from his 2016 campaign.
The Justice Department declined to comment on the lawsuit Monday night. Protesters took to the streets in several cities Monday. Across from the White House, demonstrators held neon-colored letters that spelled “Power grab.”
“You wouldn’t expect to celebrate Presidents’ Day this way, but we do what you got to do,” California’s Democratic Attorney General Xavier Becerra, leader of the states coalition, said Monday in an interview. “in this case, we are having to commemorate . . . by protesting, whether marching in the street or marching into court.”
Through the president’s declared emergency, White House officials plan to use $8 billion to build sections of a barrier that Trump says will obstruct or deter migrants from crossing into the country. That sum is about $6.6 billion more than Congress allotted for the purpose in its latest spending plan.
In the 56-page complaint, Becerra and his counterparts argue that diverting money that Congress has designated for other purposes violates the separation of powers defined in the Constitution.
The complaint says that once Congress passes laws and a president signs them, the Constitution requires that the president “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”
Another clause of the Constitution, the lawsuit notes, prevents money from being paid from the U.S. Treasury unless Congress has appropriated it.
The lawsuit also says that the “federal government’s own data prove there is no national emergency at the southern border that warrants construction of a wall. Customs and Border Protection data show that unlawful entries are near 45-year lows.” In addition to California, the states participating in the suit are Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon and Virginia.
With the exception of Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, the governors of the states are Democrats.