States join forces to fight Trump’s national emergency in court

A coalition of 16 states has officially filed a lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump’s emergency declaration to pay for a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. The lawsuit, filed Monday in San Francisco, argues that the president’s emergency declaration on Friday constituted an abuse of presidential power by circumventing Congress. “Contrary to the will of Congress, the president has used the pretext of a manufactured ‘crisis’ of unlawful immigration to declare a national emergency and redirect federal dollars,” the lawsuit says. The plaintiff states are California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, and Virginia.

Trump condemned the move Tuesday. “As I predicted, 16 states, led mostly by Open Border Democrats and the Radical Left, have filed a lawsuit in, of course, the 9th Circuit!” he tweeted. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled against the Trump administration before in other immigration matters such as the 2017 ban on travelers from some Muslim-majority countries.

Lawmakers granted Trump $1.4 billion for new border barriers in a budget bill compromise to prevent another partial government shutdown last week, a far cry from the $5.7 billion the White House originally demanded. The president intends to redirect funding from several places, including a drug interdiction program and military construction, to get more money for the wall.