(WASHINGTON) — The American Civil Liberties Union says it will file a lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump’s emergency declaration to fund a wall on the U.S.-Mexican border.

The Friday announcement came hours after Trump signed the declaration and said he expected legal challenges. The civil rights group will argue that Trump’s use of emergency powers is unprecedented and can’t be used to build a border wall.

ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero says the declaration is ‘patently illegal.’ Their legal action would be separate from anything Congress may do.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (puh-LOH’-see) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer have also raised the possibility of legal action. They say Trump’s decision would “shred the Constitution” by usurping Congress’ power to control spending.

White House officials say some of the money would come from military construction projects.</s>ACLU Says It Will Sue Over Trump Emergency Order

WASHINGTON (AP) – The American Civil Liberties Union says it will file a lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump’s emergency declaration to fund a wall on the U.S.-Mexican border.

The Friday announcement came hours after Trump signed the declaration and said he expected legal challenges. The civil rights group will argue that Trump’s use of emergency powers is unprecedented and can’t be used to build a border wall.

ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero says the declaration is ‘patently illegal.’ Their legal action would be separate from anything Congress may do.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer have also raised the possibility of legal action. They say Trump’s decision would “shred the Constitution” by usurping Congress’ power to control spending.

White House officials say some of the money would come from military construction projects.</s>Hours after President Donald Trump declared a national emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border, two lawsuits have been filed seeking to block it.

Advocacy group Public Citizen confirmed their lawsuit in a tweet saying, “BREAKING: We just sued Trump over his fake national emergency.”

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics also confirmed that they're suing the Justice Department after "it failed to to produce documents concerning the legality of President Trump invoking emergency powers to build a border wall."

The American Civil Liberties Union had announced earlier it would file suit challenging his emergency powers declaration.

"By the president's very own admission in the Rose Garden, there is no national emergency. He just grew impatient and frustrated with Congress, and decided to move along his promise for a border wall 'faster,'" said ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero. Some Democratic state attorneys general have also threatened to go to court over the decision

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and Gov. Gavin Newsom, both Democrats, told reporters that the state is also likely to sue the president over his emergency 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 signed the declaration to justify diverting billions of federal dollars from military construction and other purposes after Congress approved only a fraction of the money he had demanded. The standoff over border funding had led to the longest government shutdown in history. To avoid another shutdown, Trump reluctantly signed a funding bill Friday that included just $1.4 billion of the $5.7 billion he had demanded for the wall.

Trump announced the declaration in a free-wheeling, 50-minute Rose Garden news conference that included a long preamble about his administration's accomplishments. He jousted with reporters and delivered a sing-song prediction about the fate of the order as it winds its way through the legal system before potentially ending up at the Supreme Court.

"Sadly, we'll be sued and sadly it will go through a process and happily we'll win, I think," said Trump.

“If Trump gets away with this, there’s no telling what the next concocted ‘emergency’ will be, wo will be targeted and what emergency powers will be claimed,” Public Citizen said in a tweet. “We refuse to tolerate this slide to authoritarianism.”

Trump announced in his national emergency speech that he will be spending roughly $8 billion on border barriers — combining the money approved by Congress with funding he plans to repurpose through executive actions.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.</s>Hours after President Donald Trump declared a national emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border, two lawsuits have been filed seeking to block it.

Advocacy group Public Citizen confirmed their lawsuit in a tweet saying, “BREAKING: We just sued Trump over his fake national emergency.”

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics also confirmed that they're suing the Justice Department after "it failed to to produce documents concerning the legality of President Trump invoking emergency powers to build a border wall."

The American Civil Liberties Union had announced earlier it would file suit challenging his emergency powers declaration.

"By the president's very own admission in the Rose Garden, there is no national emergency. He just grew impatient and frustrated with Congress, and decided to move along his promise for a border wall 'faster,'" said ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero. Some Democratic state attorneys general have also threatened to go to court over the decision

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and Gov. Gavin Newsom, both Democrats, told reporters that the state is also likely to sue the president over his emergency 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 signed the declaration to justify diverting billions of federal dollars from military construction and other purposes after Congress approved only a fraction of the money he had demanded. The standoff over border funding had led to the longest government shutdown in history. To avoid another shutdown, Trump reluctantly signed a funding bill Friday that included just $1.4 billion of the $5.7 billion he had demanded for the wall.

Trump announced the declaration in a free-wheeling, 50-minute Rose Garden news conference that included a long preamble about his administration's accomplishments. He jousted with reporters and delivered a sing-song prediction about the fate of the order as it winds its way through the legal system before potentially ending up at the Supreme Court.

"Sadly, we'll be sued and sadly it will go through a process and happily we'll win, I think," said Trump.

“If Trump gets away with this, there’s no telling what the next concocted ‘emergency’ will be, wo will be targeted and what emergency powers will be claimed,” Public Citizen said in a tweet. “We refuse to tolerate this slide to authoritarianism.”

Trump announced in his national emergency speech that he will be spending roughly $8 billion on border barriers — combining the money approved by Congress with funding he plans to repurpose through executive actions.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.</s>President Donald Trump declared a national emergency along the southern border Friday and predicted his administration would end up defending it all the way to the Supreme Court.

That might have been the only thing Trump said Friday that produced near-universal agreement.

The American Civil Liberties Union announced its intention to sue less than an hour after the White House released the text of Trump’s declaration that the “current situation at the southern border presents a border security and humanitarian crisis that threatens core national security interests and constitutes a national emergency.”

Nonprofit watchdog group Public Citizen filed suit later, urging the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to “bar Trump and the U.S. Department of Defense from using the declaration and funds appropriated for other purposes to build a border wall.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and several Democratic state attorneys general already have said they might go to court.

The coming legal fight seems likely to hinge on two main issues: Can the president declare a national emergency to build a border wall in the face of Congress’ refusal to give him all the money he wanted and, under the federal law Trump invoked in his declaration, can the Defense Department take money from some congressionally approved military construction projects to pay for wall construction?

The Pentagon has so far not said which projects might be affected.

But after weeks of publicly ruminating whether to act, Trump’s signature on the declaration set in motion a quick march to the courthouse.

Trump relied on the National Emergencies Act of 1976, which Congress adopted as a way to put some limits on presidential use of national emergencies. The act requires a president to notify Congress publicly of the national emergency and to report every six months. The law also says the president must renew the emergency every year, simply by notifying Congress. The House and Senate also can revoke a declaration by majority vote, though it would take a two-thirds vote by each house to override an expected presidential veto.

Beyond that, though, the law doesn’t say what constitutes a national emergency or impose any other limits on the president.

The broad grant of discretion to the president could make it hard to persuade courts to rule that Trump exceeded his authority in declaring a border emergency. “He’s the one who gets to make the call. We can’t second-guess it,” said John Eastman, a professor of constitutional law at the Chapman University School of Law.

Courts often are reluctant to look beyond the justifications the president included in his proclamation, Ohio State University law professor Peter Shane said on a call organized by the liberal American Constitution Society.

But other legal experts said the facts are powerfully arrayed against the president. They include government statistics showing a decades-long decline in illegal border crossings as well as Trump’s rejection of a deal last year that would have provided more than the nearly $1.4 billion he got for border security in the budget agreement he signed Thursday. Opponents of the declaration also are certain to use Trump’s own words at his Rose Garden news conference Friday to argue that there is no emergency on the border.

“I could do the wall over a longer period of time,” Trump said. “I didn’t need to do this, but I’d rather do it much faster.”

Republican Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan said Congress made a conscious choice not to give Trump what he wanted. “A prerequisite for declaring an emergency is that the situation requires immediate action and Congress does not have an opportunity to act,” Amash said on Twitter.

ACLU executive director Anthony Romero said Trump’s remarks are an admission that there is no national emergency. “He just grew impatient and frustrated with Congress,” Romero said in a statement that also said the rights group would file a lawsuit next week.

Trying to turn the president’s words against him failed in the challenge to Trump’s ban on travel to the United States by citizens of several mostly Muslim countries. The ban’s opponents argued that Trump’s comments as a candidate and as president showed the ban was motivated by anti-Muslim bias, not concern about national security. Lower courts struck down the ban, but the Supreme Court upheld it in a 5-4 vote last year.

Trump said he expected to lose in lower courts that he claims have been unfair to him, particularly if lawsuits are filed in California. “Hopefully, we’ll get a fair shake and we’ll win in the Supreme Court, just like the ban,” he said.

Beyond the challenge to Trump’s authority to declare an emergency, lawsuits also are expected to focus on the military construction project law that allows the re-allocation of money in a national emergency.

Eastman said he doubts that the Supreme Court would try to interfere with Trump’s decision to send the military to the border and then authorize the use of money from other Defense Department construction projects to build miles of a border wall. “The president is authorized to make those judgments, not some judge in San Francisco,” Eastman said.

But the ACLU’s suit will argue that Congress allowed for flexibility in using money it appropriated for projects needed to support the emergency use of the military forces, like overseas military airfields in wartime.

Several legal experts said claims that the building of the wall is not the kind of project contemplated in the military construction law could be more difficult to rebut because border security is more like a law enforcement issue than a military emergency.

But Shane, the Ohio State professor, said, “It’s hard to know how exactly this is going to unfold politically or judicially.”</s>President Donald Trump declared a national emergency along the southern border and predicted his administration would end up defending it all the way to the Supreme Court.

That might have been the only thing Trump said Friday that produced near-universal agreement.

The American Civil Liberties Union announced its intention to sue less than an hour after the White House released the text of Trump's declaration that the "current situation at the southern border presents a border security and humanitarian crisis that threatens core national security interests and constitutes a national emergency."

Nonprofit watchdog group Public Citizen filed suit later, urging the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to "bar Trump and the U.S. Department of Defense from using the declaration and funds appropriated for other purposes to build a border wall."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and several Democratic state attorneys general already have said they might go to court.

The coming legal fight seems likely to hinge on two main issues: Can the president declare a national emergency to build a border wall in the face of Congress' refusal to give him all the money he wanted and, under the federal law Trump invoked in his declaration, can the Defense Department take money from some congressionally approved military construction projects to pay for wall construction?

The Pentagon has so far not said which projects might be affected.

But after weeks of publicly ruminating whether to act, Trump's signature on the declaration set in motion a quick march to the courthouse.

Trump relied on the National Emergencies Act of 1976, which Congress adopted as a way to put some limits on presidential use of national emergencies. The act requires a president to notify Congress publicly of the national emergency and to report every six months. The law also says the president must renew the emergency every year, simply by notifying Congress. The House and Senate also can revoke a declaration by majority vote, though it would take a two-thirds vote by each house to override an expected presidential veto.

Beyond that, though, the law doesn't say what constitutes a national emergency or impose any other limits on the president.

The broad grant of discretion to the president could make it hard to persuade courts to rule that Trump exceeded his authority in declaring a border emergency. "He's the one who gets to make the call. We can't second-guess it," said John Eastman, a professor of constitutional law at the Chapman University School of Law.

Courts often are reluctant to look beyond the justifications the president included in his proclamation, Ohio State University law professor Peter Shane said on a call organized by the liberal American Constitution Society.

But other legal experts said the facts are powerfully arrayed against the president. They include government statistics showing a decades-long decline in illegal border crossings as well as Trump's rejection of a deal last year that would have provided more than the nearly $1.4 billion he got for border security in the budget agreement he signed Thursday. Opponents of the declaration also are certain to use Trump's own words at his Rose Garden news conference Friday to argue that there is no emergency on the border.

"I could do the wall over a longer period of time," Trump said. "I didn't need to do this, but I'd rather do it much faster."

Republican Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan said Congress made a conscious choice not to give Trump what he wanted. "A prerequisite for declaring an emergency is that the situation requires immediate action and Congress does not have an opportunity to act," Amash said on Twitter.

ACLU executive director Anthony Romero said Trump's remarks are an admission that there is no national emergency. "He just grew impatient and frustrated with Congress," Romero said in a statement that also said the rights group would file a lawsuit next week.

Trying to turn the president's words against him failed in the challenge to Trump's ban on travel to the United States by citizens of several mostly Muslim countries. The ban's opponents argued that Trump's comments as a candidate and as president showed the ban was motivated by anti-Muslim bias, not concern about national security. Lower courts struck down the ban, but the Supreme Court upheld it in a 5-4 vote last year.

Trump said he expected to lose in lower courts that he claims have been unfair to him, particularly if lawsuits are filed in California. "Hopefully, we'll get a fair shake and we'll win in the Supreme Court, just like the ban," he said.

Beyond the challenge to Trump's authority to declare an emergency, lawsuits also are expected to focus on the military construction project law that allows the re-allocation of money in a national emergency.

Eastman said he doubts that the Supreme Court would try to interfere with Trump's decision to send the military to the border and then authorize the use of money from other Defense Department construction projects to build miles of a border wall. "The president is authorized to make those judgments, not some judge in San Francisco," Eastman said.

But the ACLU's suit will argue that Congress allowed for flexibility in using money it appropriated for projects needed to support the emergency use of the military forces, like overseas military airfields in wartime.

Several legal experts said claims that the building of the wall is not the kind of project contemplated in the military construction law could be more difficult to rebut because border security is more like a law enforcement issue than a military emergency.

But Shane, the Ohio State professor, said, "It's hard to know how exactly this is going to unfold politically or judicially."</s>When President Trump declared a national emergency along the southern border, he predicted his administration would end up defending it all the way to the Supreme Court.

That might have been the only thing Mr. Trump said Friday that produced near-universal agreement.

The American Civil Liberties Union announced its intention to sue less than an hour after the White House released the text of Mr. Trump's declaration, which said the "current situation at the southern border presents a border security and humanitarian crisis that threatens core national security interests and constitutes a national emergency."

Nonprofit watchdog group Public Citizen later filed suit, urging the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to "bar Trump and the U.S. Department of Defense from using the declaration and funds appropriated for other purposes to build a border wall."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and several Democratic state attorneys general already have said they might go to court. And California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced he is filing a lawsuit to challenge the declaration, CBS News' Errol Barnett reported.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler also announced that his committee will be investigating Mr. Trump's reasoning for calling the national emergency.

The coming legal fights seem likely to hinge on two main issues: Can the president declare a national emergency to build a border wall in the face of Congress' refusal to give him all the money he wanted, and, under the federal law Mr. Trump invoked in his declaration, can the Defense Department take money from some congressionally approved military construction projects to pay for wall construction?

Mr. Trump is expecting to use $8 billion to build the wall, including the $1.375 billion approved by Congress, with an additional $600 million expected to come from the Treasury Department's drug forfeiture funds, $2.5 billion coming from the Defense Department's drug interdiction program, and an additional $3.5 billion coming from the Pentagon's military construction budget.

Mr. Trump relied on the National Emergencies Act of 1975, which Congress adopted as a way to put some limits on presidential use of national emergencies. The act requires a president to notify Congress publicly of the national emergency and to report every six months. The law also says the president must renew the emergency every year, simply by notifying Congress.

The House and Senate can revoke a declaration by majority vote, but it would take a two-thirds vote by each house to override an expected presidential veto.

Beyond that, the law doesn't say what constitutes a national emergency or impose any other limits on the president.

The Department of Defense (DOD) released a statement saying the president invoked sections 12302, 284(b)(7), and 2808 of Title X of the U.S. Code.

Section 12302 authorizes "involuntary activation" of reserve troops to perform a "federal mission at the direction of the secretary of defense." Section 284(b)(7) allows the DOD to support counter-drug activities of other federal agencies, such as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) "with the construction of roads, fences, and lighting" to disrupt drug trafficking.

Section 2808 of Title X authorizes the Defense secretary to decide whether barriers are necessary to support the actions of the armed services, and to redirect unobligated military construction funds to construct the border barriers.

The broad grant of discretion to the president could make it hard to persuade courts to rule that Mr. Trump exceeded his authority in declaring a border emergency.

"He's the one who gets to make the call. We can't second-guess it," said John Eastman, a professor of constitutional law at the Chapman University School of Law.

Courts often are reluctant to look beyond the justifications the president included in his proclamation, Ohio State University law professor Peter Shane said on a call organized by the liberal American Constitution Society.

But other legal experts said the facts are powerfully arrayed against the president. They include government statistics showing a decades-long decline in illegal border crossings, as well as Mr. Trump's rejection of a deal last year that would have provided more than the nearly $1.4 billion he got for border security in the budget agreement he signed Thursday.

Opponents of the declaration also are certain to use Mr. Trump's own words at his Rose Garden news conference Friday to argue that there is no emergency on the border.

"I could do the wall over a longer period of time," Mr. Trump said. "I didn't need to do this, but I'd rather do it much faster."

ACLU executive director Anthony Romero said Mr. Trump's remarks are an admission that there is no national emergency. "He just grew impatient and frustrated with Congress," Romero said in a statement.

However, trying to turn the president's words against him failed in the challenge to Mr. Trump's ban on travel to the United States by citizens of several mostly Muslim countries. The ban's opponents argued that Mr. Trump's comments as a candidate and as president showed the ban was motivated by anti-Muslim bias, not concern about national security. Lower courts struck down the ban, but the Supreme Court upheld it in a 5-4 vote last year.

Mr. Trump said he expected to lose in lower courts that he claims have been unfair to him, particularly if lawsuits are filed in California. "Hopefully, we'll get a fair shake and we'll win in the Supreme Court, just like the ban," he said on Friday.

Beyond the challenge to Mr. Trump's authority to declare an emergency, lawsuits also are expected to focus on the military construction project law that allows the re-allocation of money in a national emergency.

"It's hard to know how exactly this is going to unfold politically or judicially," said Shane, the Ohio State professor.</s>President Donald Trump declared a national emergency along the southern border and predicted his administration would end up defending it all the way to the Supreme Court.

That might have been the only thing Mr Trump said on Friday that produced near-universal agreement.

The American Civil Liberties Union announced its intention to sue less than an hour after the White House released the text of Mr Trump’s declaration that the “current situation at the southern border presents a border security and humanitarian crisis that threatens core national security interests and constitutes a national emergency.”

Non-profit watchdog group Public Citizen filed suit later, urging the US District Court for the District of Columbia to “bar Trump and the US Department of Defense from using the declaration and funds appropriated for other purposes to build a border wall.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and several Democratic state Attorneys-General already have said they might go to court.

The coming legal fight seems likely to hinge on two main issues: Can the president declare a national emergency to build a border wall in the face of Congress’ refusal to give him all the money he wanted and, under the federal law Mr Trump invoked in his declaration, can the Defense Department take money from some congressionally approved military construction projects to pay for wall construction?

The Pentagon has so far not said which projects might be affected. But after weeks of publicly ruminating whether to act, Mr Trump’s signature on the declaration set in motion a quick march to the courthouse.

Mr Trump relied on the National Emergencies Act of 1976, which Congress adopted as a way to put some limits on presidential use of national emergencies.

The act requires a president to notify Congress publicly of the national emergency and to report every six months.

The law also says the president must renew the emergency every year, simply by notifying Congress. The House and Senate also can revoke a declaration by majority vote, though it would take a two-thirds vote by each house to override an expected presidential veto.

Beyond that, though, the law doesn’t say what constitutes a national emergency or impose any other limits on the president.

The broad grant of discretion to the president could make it hard to persuade courts to rule that Mr Trump exceeded his authority in declaring a border emergency.

“He’s the one who gets to make the call. We can’t second-guess it,” said John Eastman, a professor of constitutional law at the Chapman University School of Law.

Courts often are reluctant to look beyond the justifications the president included in his proclamation, Ohio State University law professor Peter Shane said on a call organised by the liberal American Constitution Society.

But other legal experts said the facts are powerfully arrayed against the president.

They include government statistics showing a decades-long decline in illegal border crossings as well as Mr Trump’s rejection of a deal last year that would have provided more than the nearly $US1.4 billion he got for border security in the budget agreement he signed on Thursday.

Opponents of the declaration also are certain to use Mr Trump’s own words at his Rose Garden news conference on Friday to argue that there is no emergency on the border.

“I could do the wall over a longer period of time,” Mr Trump said.

“I didn’t need to do this, but I’d rather do it much faster.”

Republican Rep Justin Amash of Michigan said Congress made a conscious choice not to give Mr Trump what he wanted.

“A prerequisite for declaring an emergency is that the situation requires immediate action and Congress does not have an opportunity to act,” Mr Amash said on Twitter.

ACLU executive director Anthony Romero said Mr Trump’s remarks are an admission that there is no national emergency.

“He just grew impatient and frustrated with Congress,” Mr Romero said in a statement that also said the rights group would file a lawsuit next week.

Trying to turn the president’s words against him failed in the challenge to Mr Trump’s ban on travel to the United States by citizens of several mostly Muslim countries.

The ban’s opponents argued that Mr Trump’s comments as a candidate and as president showed the ban was motivated by anti-Muslim bias, not concern about national security. Lower courts struck down the ban, but the Supreme Court upheld it in a 5-4 vote last year.

Mr Trump said he expected to lose in lower courts that he claims have been unfair to him, particularly if lawsuits are filed in California.

“Hopefully, we’ll get a fair shake and we’ll win in the Supreme Court, just like the ban,” he said.

Beyond the challenge to Mr Trump’s authority to declare an emergency, lawsuits also are expected to focus on the military construction project law that allows the reallocation of money in a national emergency.

Mr Eastman said he doubts the Supreme Court would try to interfere with Mr Trump’s decision to send the military to the border and then authorise the use of money from other Defense Department construction projects to build miles of a border wall.

“The president is authorised to make those judgments, not some judge in San Francisco,” Mr Eastman said.

But the ACLU’s suit will argue that Congress allowed for flexibility in using money it appropriated for projects needed to support the emergency use of the military forces, like overseas military airfields in wartime.

Several legal experts said claims that the building of the wall is not the kind of project contemplated in the military construction law could be more difficult to rebut because border security is more like a law enforcement issue than a military emergency.

But Mr Shane, the Ohio State professor, said, “It’s hard to know how exactly this is going to unfold politically or judicially.”</s>Hours after President Donald Trump declared a national emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border, two lawsuits have been filed seeking to block it.

Advocacy group Public Citizen confirmed their lawsuit in a tweet saying, “BREAKING: We just sued Trump over his fake national emergency.”

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics also confirmed that they're suing the Justice Department after "it failed to to produce documents concerning the legality of President Trump invoking emergency powers to build a border wall."

The American Civil Liberties Union had announced earlier it would file suit challenging his emergency powers declaration.

"By the president's very own admission in the Rose Garden, there is no national emergency. He just grew impatient and frustrated with Congress, and decided to move along his promise for a border wall 'faster,'" said ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero. Some Democratic state attorneys general have also threatened to go to court over the decision

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and Gov. Gavin Newsom, both Democrats, told reporters that the state is also likely to sue the president over his emergency 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 signed the declaration to justify diverting billions of federal dollars from military construction and other purposes after Congress approved only a fraction of the money he had demanded. The standoff over border funding had led to the longest government shutdown in history. To avoid another shutdown, Trump reluctantly signed a funding bill Friday that included just $1.4 billion of the $5.7 billion he had demanded for the wall.

Trump announced the declaration in a free-wheeling, 50-minute Rose Garden news conference that included a long preamble about his administration's accomplishments. He jousted with reporters and delivered a sing-song prediction about the fate of the order as it winds its way through the legal system before potentially ending up at the Supreme Court.

"Sadly, we'll be sued and sadly it will go through a process and happily we'll win, I think," said Trump.

“If Trump gets away with this, there’s no telling what the next concocted ‘emergency’ will be, wo will be targeted and what emergency powers will be claimed,” Public Citizen said in a tweet. “We refuse to tolerate this slide to authoritarianism.”

Trump announced in his national emergency speech that he will be spending roughly $8 billion on border barriers — combining the money approved by Congress with funding he plans to repurpose through executive actions.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.</s>President Donald Trump declared a national emergency along the southern border and predicted his administration would end up defending it all the way to the Supreme Court.

That might have been the only thing Trump said Friday that produced near-universal agreement.

The American Civil Liberties Union announced its intention to sue less than an hour after the White House released the text of Trump’s declaration.

Nonprofit watchdog group Public Citizen has filed suit in federal court. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and several Democratic state attorneys general already have said they might go to court.
The American Civil Liberties Union and watchdog group Public Citizen announced they will file lawsuits challenging the legality of President Trump’s emergency declaration.