California to sue Trump over border emergency
State attorney general says wall is not needed
California’s Democratic Attorney General Xavier Becerra said Sunday that he will “definitely and imminently” file a lawsuit against the Trump administration to contest the declaration of a national emergency at the southern border.
President Donald Trump declared the emergency Friday after signing a funding bill that included less than a quarter of the money he had requested for the construction of a border barrier, which he says is necessary to stop illegal immigration.
But Democrats like Becerra do not believe conditions at the border constitute an emergency.
“It’s clear that this isn’t an emergency – it’s clear that in the mind of Donald Trump he needs to do something to try to fulfill a campaign promise,” Becerra said in an interview on ABC’S “This Week.” The construction of a border wall has been a central issue for Trump since he first announced he was running for president in 2015.
“That doesn’t constitute a national emergency that would require us to essentially stand down on all sorts of federal laws and also violate the U.S. Constitution,” said Becerra, a former congressman.
On Friday, Trump said the emergency declaration and a border wall were needed to combat an “invasion” of migrants across the southern border. He said open areas on the border allowed the free flow of drugs and dangerous criminals into the U.S.
By declaring a national emergency, along with other measures and the $1.375 billion Congress did approve, Trump will have about $8 billion to spend on border barrier construction – far more than the $5.7 billion he initially demanded.
White House adviser Stephen Miller, who is considered one of the chief architects of Trump’s immigration policies, pushed back at the idea that the president’s action was unconstitutional in an interview Sunday.
“Congress in 1976 passed the National Emergency Act and gave the president the authority, as a result of that, to invoke a national emergency in many different circumstances, but among them the use of military construction funds,” Miller said on “Fox News Sunday.”
The liberal watchdog group Public Citizen filed a federal lawsuit Friday in Washington, D.C. The group argues Trump exceeded his authority and disregarded the separation of powers outlined by the Constitution. The suit includes three Texas landowners whose property would be seized by the government through eminent domain to build part of the border barrier.
A second lawsuit was filed by the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics. It argues that the White House did not provide the supporting documents needed to justify the national emergency declaration.
Contributing: Alan Gomez and Christal Hayes