Speaker Nancy Pelosi has announced that the House will file a lawsuit challenging President Trump’s emergency declaration, which he announced earlier this year so he could get billions in border wall funding.
“The president’s sham emergency declaration and unlawful transfers of funds have undermined our democracy, contravening the vote of the bipartisan Congress, the will of the American people and the letter of the Constitution,” Pelosi said in a statement released Thursday.
The House and Senate both recently approved legislation that was aimed at blocking the emergency declaration for the wall. But the president issued his first veto, and the House last week was unable to override it.
Republicans, as well as Democrats, have expressed unease about the declaration.
The decision to authorize the legal action was made by the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group, which is made up of the congressional leadership. Pelosi, in her statement, charged that the president’s action amounts to “stealing from appropriated funds,” and that it is unconstitutional.
“No one is above the law or the Constitution, not even the president,” she said.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said Thursday that Democrats continue to fall short of acting on dangers presented by problems at the border.
“We have a broken system,” he said. “It is, [by] every measurement … probably one of the greatest crises we have seen along our southern border in … decades.”
McCarthy planned to travel with the president on Friday to check on the situation at the border. The president on Thursday backed off of his threat to immediately close the border, but warned Mexico that the country could face tariffs if it doesn’t do more to stop the flow of illegal drugs across the border.
The president said he would give Mexico a “one-year warning” to comply.
Congressional members from both parties had cautioned the president against shutting down the border, saying it could create major economic problems by cutting off trade between the United States and Mexico.
