A coalition of 16 states filed suit on Monday to block President Donald Trump’s effort to fund his border wall by declaring a national emergency, calling it a “flagrant disregard of fundamental separation of powers principles.”
The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for Northern California, is the third in a string of legal challenges already launched against Trump’s use of emergency powers since he announced the move during a meandering White House news conference on Friday. Public Citizen, a liberal advocacy group, filed a suit late Friday in the District of Columbia on behalf of three Texas landowners who would be impacted by the construction of a wall along the border. And Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics has filed a motion against the Department of Justice demanding that the agency provide documents pertaining to the legal justification of the president’s emergency declaration.
The states behind Monday’s lawsuit argued that Trump engaged in an “unlawful scheme” when he “used the pretext of a manufactured ‘crisis’ of unlawful immigration to declare a national emergency and redirect federal dollars appropriated for drug interdiction, military construction, and law enforcement initiatives toward building a wall on the United States-Mexico border,” according to a copy of the complaint obtained by POLITICO.
A White House spokesperson declined to comment.
One Republican close to the White House said the latest lawsuit satisfied the president’s prediction last week that opponents of his declaration would bring a case in the Ninth Circuit, which boasts some of the country’s most liberal jurists and has become a hot spot for cases against the Trump administration. Trump slammed the San Francisco-based court as “disgraceful” in his remarks on Friday, claiming that he would probably get a “bad ruling” there before the case reached the Supreme Court.
“It’s kind of awkward to say that on Presidents’ Day we’re going to be suing the president of the United States, but sometimes that’s what you have to do,” California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said during a Monday appearance on CNN, after telegraphing for weeks that he was prepared to take swift legal action if Trump followed through on his repeated vows to invoke an immigration emergency to justify diverting wall funding.
Becerra, who is leading the states coalition, alleges that Trump “has veered the country toward a constitutional crisis of his own making” despite a refusal by Congress refusing to allocate the funds needed to start construction. It cites his remarks in the Friday news conference that he “didn’t need to do this” as evidence his emergency declaration was without merit.
Just as Trump’s emergency declaration seemed designed to invigorate supporters to whom he promised a physical southern barrier, it seemed guaranteed to unify Democrats in opposition. Except for Maryland, all of the states that joined the lawsuit have Democratic governors.
The complaint repeatedly underscores the larger political context, arguing that the president is indulging in a “vanity project” — a favorite formulation of the wall’s opponents — and citing years of Trump’s tweets and public statements to highlight how he has been intent on the project dating back to at least August 2014, long before he was elected.
It also seeks to refute Trump’s oft-stated justification based on migrant caravans, noting that their members make up a “small fraction” of monthly apprehensions, and says that the director of national intelligence’s latest worldwide threat assessment does not describe a border crisis.
In addition to arguing that “there is no objective basis” for a national emergency given that unlawful entries to the U.S. have tumbled to a 45-year low, the lawsuit argues that states would suffer from losing millions of dollars to fund drug enforcement and forfeiting money tabbed for military construction projects to the detriment of state economies.
The border states of California and New Mexico would also incur “irreparable environmental damage,” the suit argues. Becerra has already challenged the Trump administration’s move to expedite construction by waiving environmental laws, though courts have so far sided with the administration.
The lawsuit builds on California’s record of defying the administration with dozens of lawsuits over the past few years. In addition to California, the other states that joined the lawsuit are Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon and Virginia.
“Declaring a National Emergency when one does not exist is immoral and illegal,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement. “Diverting necessary funds from real emergencies, crime-fighting activities, and military construction projects usurps Congressional power and will hurt Americans across the country. We will not stand for this abuse of power and will fight using every tool at our disposal.”
New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal echoed his fellow attorneys general in saying that Trump’s action was ill-considered and unconstitutional.
“The real national emergency is a President who refuses to adhere to the rule of law,” Grewal said in a statement. “In its effort to cater to a select few on the right, this Administration is trampling on our Constitution and circumventing the will of Congress.
“As the chief law enforcement officer for New Jersey, I have a duty to stand up for New Jersey’s residents — including our immigrant community — and so I’m joining states across the country in challenging this emergency declaration in court.”
Beyond the wave of legal challenges that Trump is already facing, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives has vowed to challenge the president’s declaration when it returns from recess next week. Freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) announced last week that they planned to “introduce a resolution to terminate the President’s emergency declaration,” Castro’s office said in a statement.
The White House has previously said Trump will veto any joint resolution to undo his declared emergency, creating an uphill battle for his opponents on Capitol Hill. Overcoming a presidential veto requires a two-thirds majority vote in both chambers of Congress.