California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon and Virginia sued Donald Trump’s administration over his decision to declare a national emergency to fund a wall on the southern border with Mexico, saying the move violated the constitution.
The lawsuit said the president’s order was contrary to the Constitution’s presentment and appropriations clauses, which outline legislative procedures and define Congress as the final arbiter of public funds, respectively. Should the states prevail, the case could work its way up to the Supreme Court, setting up a precedent-setting showdown on the separation of powers.
The states “bring this action 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 said. The complaint also questioned Trump’s categorisation of illegal border crossings as a national emergency, saying data issued by his own administration refuted the notion.
“Customs and Border Protection data show that unlawful entries are near 45-year lows,” it said. “The State Department recognises there is a lack of credible evidence that terrorists are using the southern border to enter the United States. Federal data confirm that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than are native-born Americans.”
The White House says the emergency order empowers it to pull around $6.6-billion from other sources, mostly already-allocated funds in the Defence Department budget. But the lawsuit countered that tapping military funds would result in huge losses for the states’ national guard units which would otherwise use the money for domestic drug interdiction and counter-drug activities as well as for law enforcement programs.
The complaint added that the Department of Homeland Security had violated the National Environmental Policy Act by failing to evaluate the environmental impact of the wall in California and New Mexico, saying species such as the endangered Mexican gray wolf, and the jaguar would be at risk.