After President Donald Trump announced a national emergency on Friday, Feb. 15 to secure additional funding for a wall on the southern U. S. border, the pushback has been swift. Legal challenges are being taken up left and right seeking to challenge…
After President Donald Trump announced a national emergency on Friday, Feb. 15 to secure additional funding for a wall on the southern U. S. border, the pushback has been swift. Legal challenges are being taken up left and right seeking to challenge the move. But can states block a national emergency? Apparently it’s worth trying, because 16 of them are already filing to do so.
A group of 16 states appeared in court on Monday, Feb. 19 to formally challenge Trump’s declaration of a national emergency, according to The New York Times. The coalition of states bringing the lawsuit are California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, and Virginia. The lawsuit was filed in the Federal District Court in San Francisco, led by California Attorney General Xavier Becerra. In the suit, the states allege that is it unconstitutional for Trump to divert money to the border wall from other sources because Congress, which controls the nation’s budget under Constitutional power, has not authorized that reallocation of funds. Elite Daily reached out to the White House for comment on the lawsuit but didn’t hear back as of publication.
Calling Trump’s assertion of illegal border crossers a «fake national emergency,» Becerra wrote in a tweet that the president’s declaration amounted to «a brazen overreach to rob taxpayers» and «an insult to the Democratic principles enshrined in our Constitution.
