CALIFORNIA WILL LEAD A LEGAL CHALLENGE TO TRUMP’S BORDER WALL DECLARATION

1:26 PM 02/18/2019 | POLITICS

Kevin Daley | Supreme Court Reporter

California and a coalition of left-leaning states are expected to file a legal challenge to President Donald Trump’s national emergency declaration as soon as Monday.

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra told ABC News Sunday that the state had prepared to pursue legal action in advance of the president’s announcement, and shared plans to file a lawsuit “imminently.”

Colorado, Connecticut, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, and Oregon are expected to join California’s challenge.

The administration has taken steps to improve their prospects in court. White House officials have indicated that the government will focus primarily on border barrier projects in Texas, in an apparent bid to keep the ensuing legal challenges within the jurisdiction of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals — a Trump friendly bench — or the Washington, D.C., federal courts, which are less forbidding for the president than the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

California may also struggle to prove it can bring legal action at this time. Funding for the border wall project is drawn from four sources: a $1.4 billion congressional appropriation, $600 million from the Treasury Department’s forfeiture fund, $2.5 billion from Defense Department counter-narcotics activities, and $3.6 billion from military construction projects to finance construction of the wall. Of those sources, only the $3.6 billion is accessed via the emergency declaration.

White House guidance on the emergency declaration indicates that the government will spend that money sequentially: That is to say, the government will exhaust the appropriation, the forfeiture assets, and the redirected counter-narcotics funds before expending the emergency funds. As South Texas College of Law Professor Josh Blackman has noted, potential plaintiffs like California might not have standing to challenge the declaration until those emergency funds are actually allocated.

https://dailycaller.com/2019/02/18/california-lawsuit-border-wall/?utm_medium=push&utm_source=daily_caller&utm_campaign=push