Sixteen states, led by California, filed a lawsuit Monday against the Trump administration over President Trump’s decision to use $6.6 billion to build hundreds of miles of wall at the U.S.-Mexico border.
“The separation of powers is being violated, we’re going to go out there and make sure that Donald Trump cannot steal money from the states and people who need them, since we paid the taxpayer dollars to Washington, D.C., to get those services,” California’s Democratic Attorney General Xavier Becerra told MSNBC Monday afternoon. “The president admitted that there’s not a basis for the declaration. He admitted there’s no crisis at the border. He’s now trying to rob funds that were allocated by Congress legally to the various states and people of our states.”
Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, and Virginia are the other states involved, according to NBC News.
The American Civil Liberties Union said Friday it would sue the Trump administration this week.
Two other lawsuits — by watchdog groups Public Citizen and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington — have been filed since Friday.
The White House plans to use $6.6 billion in previously-appropriated funding to build 234 miles of barrier along the southern border after Congress gave him $1.375 billion, roughly one-quarter of the $5.7 billion he requested in December.
Trump opted to use $600 million from the Treasury Department’s drug forfeiture fund, $2.5 billion from the Defense Department’s drug interdiction program, and $3.5 billion from a military construction fund.
Since 1976, presidents have cited their authority under the National Emergencies Act 59 times to approve and fund executive projects that were a matter of national security, an administration official said.
[Also read: House Democrat counters Trump with resolution declaring climate change a national emergency]