On Friday, Donald Trump’s national emergency declaration to spend in excess of $6 billion to put up a wall on the border with Mexico will face its very first test in court, when states and advocacy groups are very much expectant that the federal judge would block the funding.
And at the center of the hearing on Friday is the question of the president’s power to put up a wall using funds that Congress declined to approve for the amount he requested.
In February, Congress approved $1.375 billion for construction of “primary pedestrian fencing” along the border in the southeastern part of Texas, which was way below Trump’s demand for $5.7 billion to build border walls in Arizona and New Mexico as well as Texas.
To obtain the additional money to construct the wall, Trump declared a national emergency and diverted $601 million from a Treasury forfeiture fund, $3.6 billion from military construction and $2.5 billion earmarked for Department of Defense counterdrug programs.
“Congress’s refusal to fund President Trump’s wall isn’t an emergency, it’s democracy,” said a statement from Dror Ladin, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, which represents plaintiffs in the case.
So far the Trump administration argues the plaintiffs have not identified injury caused by the funding decisions and that already existing law gives it the leeway to redirect the money for such purposes as “an unforeseen military requirement” or a “law enforcement activity.”
For his 2016 campaign for president, Trump made a border wall the center of his race when he said Mexico would pay for the construction. That pledge went nowhere, and Trump also hit resistance in Congress even as apprehensions of migrants by border agents hit a decade high as of April.
In Friday’s hearing, the plaintiffs include 20 states, the Sierra Club environmental group and the Southern Border Communities Coalition, which fights for immigrants. They argued in court papers that the Trump’s administration has violated the separation of power principle of the U.S. Constitution, among other claims.
“The wall construction would harm the environment and the wildlife habitats for such creatures as Gila monsters and the Mexican wolf,” the plaintiffs added.