A group of 16 states, headed by California, on Monday filed a lawsuit seeking to block President Donald Trump's move to declare a national emergency to get funding for his proposed southern border wall.
The states, 15 of which have Democratic governors, called the situation at the border a "manufactured crisis", according to The Hill.
"President Trump has veered the country toward a constitutional crisis of his own making. For years, President Trump has repeatedly stated his intention to build a wall across the United States-Mexico border," reads the suit, which was filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of California.
The suit says the states are bringing forth the injunction “to protect their residents, natural resources, and economic interests from President Donald J. Trump’s flagrant disregard of fundamental separation of powers principles engrained in the United States Constitution.”
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, a Democrat, announced his intention to begin a lawsuit almost immediately after Trump declared a national emergency Friday to circumvent Congress and allocate nearly $8 billion to fund his long-sought project along the US-Mexico border.
Becerra has said that the basis for an injunction on Trump's declaration is that there is no actual emergency at the border.
"He did not have to call this an emergency," Becerra said Sunday on ABC'. “It's become clear that this is not an emergency, not only because no one believes it is, but because Donald Trump himself has said it's not."
"He has also said he knows he’s going to lose in court,” he added. “And he’s hoping that he can count on a conservative court in the Supreme Court to give him a victory because he knows he’s going to lose all the way up the ladder of the federal court system.”
Trump’s decision to declare a national emergency follows the 35-day government shutdown which started when Congress refused to approve $5.7 billion to help build a portion of the wall.
The shutdown ended on January 25 when the sides reached a deal for government to reopen for three weeks until February 15 while negotiations between Republicans and Democrats continue in an attempt to reach an agreement on border security.