MN AG Keith Ellison Joins Lawsuit Against President Trump’s Border Emergency Declaration
SAINT PAUL, Minn. – Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison has joined a 16 state lawsuit led by California to fight President Trump’s emergency declaration to fund his border wall.
“President Trump, who has been unable to persuade Congress and the American people that a wall is necessary, is harming the people of Minnesota by forcing this constitutional crisis. I have joined this lawsuit because I cannot allow him to do that,” Ellison said.
A press release from Ellison’s office calls President Trump’s move to divert federal funding for the Department of Defense, which is set up by Congress, “illegal and unconstitutional.”
“We will have a national emergency, and we will then be sued,”President Trump said on Friday when he announced the emergency declaration, adding that the federal appeals courts could well rule against his administration. “Then we’ll end up in the Supreme Court, and hopefully we’ll get a fair shake, and we’ll win at the Supreme Court … just like the [travel] ban.”
The lawsuit asks the United States District Court in Northern California to declare the diversion of federal funds toward construction of a border wall is unconstitutional or unlawful because it violates the separation of powers, the Appropriations Clause of the Constitution which gives Congress the ability to fund the federal government, exceeds Congressional authority granted to the executive branch and is “beyond the legal powers of the executive branch.”
“The President’s emergency declaration would cause both short and long-term harm to the people of Minnesota. This declaration — which the President himself said is unnecessary — hurts Minnesota by putting at risk the diversion of funds that Congress has legally appropriated to the Minnesota National Guard, which helps Minnesotans by responding to natural disasters, working with local law enforcement to interdict illegal drugs, and supporting local communities in every corner of our state. It is also a clear overreach of the power of the executive branch that hurts the people of Minnesota and every state by manufacturing a crisis— at a time when unauthorized border-crossings are at a 20-year low — that endangers the balance of powers at the root of our Constitution,” Ellison said.
