Downtown demonstrators join protest of national emergency declaration
With opposition continuing to mount over President Donald Trump’s declaration of a national emergency last week, more than 100 demonstrators gathered in Downtown Pittsburgh on Monday to deem his signature border wall proposal “racist” and call on Congress to oppose his unilateral action.
Marking Presidents Day with a rally on the steps of the City-County Building, the attendees denounced Mr. Trump’s rhetoric on immigration and said they were standing in solidarity with the immigrant community.
The public display — along with several other similar rallies across the country on Monday — underscored the impending battle over the constitutionality of the president’s national emergency, which he declared last week to sidestep Congress and redirect taxpayer money to pay for 230 miles of barriers along the southern border.
“The president cannot change national policies that affect real people based on his whims,” said Laura Perkins, an emergency response organizer with Casa San Jose, a Latino community resource center in Pittsburgh.
Also on Monday, a group of state attorneys general filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Mr. Trump’s national emergency. The effort was organized by California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and includes the attorneys general of 15 other states.
“We’re going to try to halt the president from violating the Constitution, the separation of powers, from stealing money from Americans and states that have been allocated by Congress lawfully,” Mr. Becerra told CNN on Monday.
Although he has joined similar legal efforts against the Trump administration in the past, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro was not named among the plaintiffs in the suit.
In a statement Monday night, Mr. Shapiro said he’s “deeply concerned” about the president’s action, and fears it could divert tens of millions of dollars in funds allocated to Pennsylvania for a “fictional emergency.”
But, Mr. Shapiro said, the Trump administration hasn’t provided guidance on its funding sources, so he is awaiting more information.
“Congress and the president must act to fix our broken immigration system, but I will not allow essential funding for Pennsylvania to be held hostage in the process,” Mr. Shapiro said. “By the president’s own admission, this declaration is not necessary — and it’s Congress’ job to determine its validity.”
In the days since Mr. Trump’s announcement, the White House has asserted that the president could have ignored the “crisis” on the southern border like presidents in the past. White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller said Sunday the emergency is real, and that there have been an “increasing number of people crossing” the border and “a huge increase in drug deaths” since George W. Bush held the presidency.
But rally-goers in Pittsburgh denounced the president’s emergency as a “fake crisis,” and urged Congress to take legislative action. Democrats in the House are preparing a joint resolution to rescind the emergency — an effort that is expected to win some Republican support but also a veto from the president.
Mayor Bill Peduto joined the demonstration and told the attendees that there are several emergencies that need to be addressed instead of a border wall, including the opioid epidemic and climate change.
“It’s very interesting that we’re completely throwing away the system for something that not one Congress member on the border wants,” Mr. Peduto said.