Emergency powers to build border wall: 16 states sue Donald Trump

The lawsuit is part of a constitutional confrontation that Trump set off on Friday when he declared that he would spend billions of dollars more on border barriers than Congress had granted him.

A vendor packs up his cart for the day as the border wall sits in the distance along the beach in Tijuana, Mexico. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

Written by Charlie Savage and Robert Pear

A coalition of 16 Democratic-controlled states, including California and New York, on Monday, challenged President Donald Trump in court over his plan to use emergency powers to spend billions of dollars on his border wall.

The lawsuit is part of a constitutional confrontation that Trump set off on Friday when he declared that he would spend billions of dollars more on border barriers than Congress had granted him. The clash raises questions over congressional control of spending, the scope of emergency powers granted to the president, and how far the courts are willing to go to settle such a dispute.

The suit, filed in US District Court in San Francisco, argues that the president does not have the power to divert funds for constructing a wall along the Mexican border because it is Congress that controls spending.

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Trump declares U.S.-Mexico border emergency

President Donald Trump on Friday declared a national emergency in a bid to fund his promised wall at the U.S.-Mexico border without congressional approval, an action Democrats vowed to challenge as a violation of the U.S. Constitution.

Xavier Becerra, the attorney general of California, said in an interview that the president himself had undercut his argument that there was an emergency in the border.

“Probably the best evidence is the president’s own words,” he said, referring to Trump’s speech on Feb. 15 announcing his plan: “I didn’t need to do this, but I’d rather do it much faster.”