SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) – California is likely to sue President Donald Trump over his emergency declaration to fund a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, the state attorney general said Friday.
Attorney General Xavier Becerra and Gov. Gavin Newsom, both Democrats, told reporters there is no emergency at the border and Trump doesn’t have the authority to make the declaration.
“No one in America is above the law, not even the president of the United States,” Becerra said. “The president does not have power to act frivolously.”
Trump declared a national emergency earlier in the day to bypass Congress to use money from the Pentagon and counterdrug efforts to fulfill his promise of completing the border wall. The president said immigrants entering the U.S. illegally were invading the country.
The announcement was immediately met with resistance from members of Congress. Becerra and Newsom said they were reviewing the emergency declaration but were likely to join other states in suing. They did not say when the state plans to file a lawsuit or what specific legal arguments it will use.