Sixteen States File Lawsuit Against Trump’s National Emergency

Sixteen states have joined a lawsuit challenging President Trump’s national-emergency declaration for border-wall funding, The New York Times reports. The states—including California and New York—filed a suit in District Court in San Francisco late Monday, claiming Trump did not have the authority to divert government funding toward a wall along the Mexican border because Congress controls spending. “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 appropriated for drug interdiction, military construction, and law-enforcement initiatives toward building a wall on the United States-Mexico border” the lawsuit is said to state. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra told the newspaper the best evidence against Trump’s declaration was the president’s own words—referring to the Feb. 15 presser in which Trump said he “didn’t need” to declare an emergency but he’d “rather do it much faster.” The Justice Department reportedly declined to comment for the Times.