SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California and 19 other states that are suing President Donald Trump over his emergency declaration to build a border wall have requested a court order to stop money from being diverted to fund the project.
At a press conference held Friday, Becerra said this will prevent $1.6 billion — intended for law enforcement, drug interdiction and military construction projects — from being siphoned away and used to build the border wall.
Becerra says it's important to block the diversion of funds before it happens because it will harder to replace if the money is committed to border wall construction.
The action is part of the states' lawsuit challenging Trump's emergency declaration to fund a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. The coalition says the declaration was unconstitutional because it bypasses the role of Congress to authorize funding.
PAST SUITS AGAINST TRUMP ADMINISTRATION
To date, the California Attorney General's office has sued the Trump administration 49 times. Two of those lawsuits were filed in the last week.
The first of those two lawsuits, filed Wednesday, April 3, challenged the Trump Administration's reversal of school meal nutrition standards. The second, filed Thursday, April 4, seeks to block President Trump's "Two-for-one" executive order which requires two regulations to be removed for every new regulation introduced.
Many have questioned how much money is being spent on the lawsuits. To that, Becerra said the following: "The amount we're having to spend is a fraction of what we're saving."
The Attorney General went on to say that court victories are already restoring $58 million dollars to law enforcement agencies and a verdict on a census citizen question could mean billions of dollars to the state over the next 10 years.
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