Sixteen states led by California Attorney General Xavier Becerra filed a lawsuit on Monday to challenge President Donald Trump’s national emergency declaration aimed to secure funding for his border wall.
The group of states filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
“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 has been allocated by Congress, lawfully,” Becerra told CNN.
The Trump administration has already faced a series of lawsuits over the President’s decision to declare a national emergency. Legal action has also been announced by the Center for Biological Diversity, Border Network for Human Rights and the American Civil Liberties Union.
The states, 15 of which have Democratic governors, called the situation at the border a “manufactured crisis,” arguing that Trump is setting a negative precedent by circumventing Congress to get money for his signature campaign promise.
“President Trump has veered the country toward a constitutional crisis of his own making. For years, President Trump has repeatedly stated his intention to build a wall across the United States-Mexico border,” the lawsuit says.
The group of 16 states is seeking to have the national emergency declaration ruled unlawful as well as to have the court permanently enjoin the Trump administration from building a border wall without an appropriation by Congress.
The states are bringing forth the injunction to protect the American people, “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 suit says.
Becerra is adamant there is no real emergency at the border and that Trump did not have to call it so, even more so as the President himself said it is not an emergency. He further said Trump was “essentially stealing money that’s been allocated to go to the various states for various purposes” and is thus harming citizens.
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