Gov. Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Xavier Becerra said Friday that California will sue to block President Donald Trump’s national emergency declaration aimed at diverting federal funding to build more fencing along the southern border with Mexico.
“No other state will be more harmed than the state of California,” Newsom said, arguing it will affect funding for the state’s military installations, national guard and illegal drug enforcement efforts. “Donald Trump, we’ll see you in court.”
Last month amid a funding standoff over money for border barriers — which Trump sees as key to fulfilling a campaign promise of a border “wall” — his administration suggested he might use an emergency declaration to divert money from disaster protection projects in California.
That pot of money didn’t appear to be on tap as the president made his declaration Friday, looking instead toward funds for military construction and illegal drug seizure. But California still features prominently in the border fight, with state representatives in Congress leading the opposition.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, joined Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-New York, in a statement condemning the move Friday as a threat to the constitution’s separation of powers.
“This is plainly a power grab by a disappointed president, who has gone outside the bounds of the law to try to get what he failed to achieve in the constitutional legislative process,” Pelosi and Schumer said.
Newsom and Becerra said they expect other states to join California’s lawsuit, which they said will be filed after they review the declaration language. They did not detail specific operations or projects that might be affected by the declaration if it isn’t blocked by the courts, but said the lawsuit would list them.
But House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Bakersfield, said he supports the president’s move.
“We face a humanitarian and national security crisis at the border that must be addressed and the president’s declaration is merely a statement of fact,” McCarthy said in a Thursday statement anticipating the move. “With the declaration and other legal authorities, the President has access to important tools to take the steps necessary to secure the border.”
The emergency declaration comes amid a fight over $5.7 billion in funding for improved and extended fencing and barriers along the border with Mexico that Trump has sought over objections from congressional Democrats. The fight led to a record 35-day partial shutdown of the federal government with Trump refusing to approve a funding package without it.
An agreement to fund the government through Friday led to compromise legislation the president said he would sign that included $1.375 billion to fund 55 miles of border fencing in Texas, short of the 234 miles of steel walls Trump had sought. Trump said he would approve the funding deal but also declare an emergency to redirect more funding for border fencing to make good on a campaign promise of a southern border “wall.”
Most of the additional fencing is sought for the Rio Grande valley in Texas, where the river marks the state’s border with Mexico. California, Arizona and New Mexico already have extensive fencing along most of their southern border.
Where will the rest of that $5.7 billion for more fencing come from now?
The Trump administration at one point was eyeing a pot of $13.9 billion in Army Corps of Engineers money for flood control and disaster relief efforts in several areas, including California, Texas, Florida, West Virginia, Louisiana and Puerto Rico, according to Rep. John Garamendi, D-Fairfield.
He said the administration was particularly interested in projects funded but not yet built in California and Puerto Rico — which Garamendi noted are not strongholds for the president’s Republican party. Those included $2.47 billion for flood control projects along the San Francisco Bay’s shoreline in San Jose, the American and Yuba rivers near Sacramento, Lake Isabella in Kern County and the Santa Ana River in Southern California.
That troubled California Republicans like Rep. Doug LaMalfa, R-Richvale, near the Butte County area destroyed by November’s deadly Camp Fire.
And on Tuesday, Garamendi introduced a bill with support from several other Democratic lawmakers that would prevent the president from diverting disaster-recovery funds from Army Corps civil works projects to bolster border fencing.
But late this week as the president signaled he would make good on his threat to declare an emergency, administration officials pointed toward other funding sources. Trump’s Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney told reporters Thursday that the White House will not use money that had been designated as disaster assistance for Puerto Rico or Texas, saying other accounts are available.
According to the Washington Post, Trump is eyeing $2.5 billion from a Defense Department drug interdiction program and about $600 million from a Treasury Department drug forfeiture fund. He also wants to use $3.6 billion in military construction funds to help build his new border barriers. White House officials believe only a military construction account requires a national emergency designation, according to the post.
The compromise funding bill passed both houses of Congress overwhelmingly on Thursday. California Sen. Kamala Harris — like several of her fellow candidates for president — was one of only five Democrats in the Senate who voted against the agreement.
“This is ridiculous,” Harris told reporters Thursday at the Capitol. “I have opposed every effort to build the wall because the American people should not have to pay for the president’s vanity project. We don’t need it.”
Sen. Dianne Feinstein voted in favor of the deal, as did all of the Bay Area’s members of the House.
“We should not be governing by shutdowns,” said Rep. Mark DeSaulnier, D-Concord. “It is not a perfect deal, but it is a bipartisan agreement between both chambers of Congress.”
San Jose Mercury News Staff Writer Casey Tolan and the Washington Post contributed to this report.
