The U.S. Chamber of Commerce issued sharp criticism of President Trump today after his announcement of a national emergency on the border, saying the move would “erode” the country’s system of government.
“We have long fought against attempts by the executive branch to usurp the powers of Congress and to create law, such as we have seen in recent decades with the rise of the regulatory administrative state,” Chamber President Thomas Donohue wrote in a statement. “We have also fought against attempts by the Congress to usurp the power of the executive.
“The declaration of national emergency in this instance will create a dangerous precedent that erodes the very system of government that has served us so well for over 200 years,” Donohue continued.
Trump declared a national emergency to bypass Congress and build his proposed wall along the southern border with Mexico.
By declaring a national emergency, Trump intends to redirect funding from military construction projects and drug-interdiction programs to pay for the wall.
The controversial move is likely to spark a long court battle.
An hour after the president’s Rose Garden event, the state of California said it would sue.
The state of Washington signaled that it could do the same.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) also said it was filing suit against the Department of Justice.
‘Americans deserve to know the true basis for President Trump’s unprecedented decision to enact emergency powers to pay for a border wall,’ the organization’s executive director, Noah Bookbinder, said in a statement. ‘We’re suing because the government has so far failed produce the requested documents or provide an explanation for their delay.’
Trump acknowledged in his announcement that the national emergency would end up in court before the Ninth Circuit and eventually make its way to the Supreme Court.
‘So the order is signed. And I’ll sign the final papers as soon as I get into the Oval Office,’ the president said. ‘And we will have a national emergency. And we will then be sued, and they will sue us in the Ninth Circuit even though it shouldn’t be there.’
The San Francisco-headquartered Court of Appeals has tripped up Trump’s other major executive orders, including his first travel ban.
Continuing to play out the court process aloud, the president said: ‘We will possibly get a bad ruling, and then we will get another bad ruling, and then we will end up in the Supreme Court, and hopefully we will get a fair shake, and we’ll win in the Supreme Court.’
Answering the question before he was ever asked, Trump said he was confident that he would win at the high court, where two conservative justices he out on the bench are the deciders, just like he did before.
‘They sued us in the Ninth Circuit and we lost, and then we lost in the appellate division, and then we went to the Supreme Court and we won,’ he stated.
Trump may have harmed his legal case with some of his own public statements. He said during the press conference that followed: ‘I didn’t need to do this. But I’d rather get it done faster.’
Administration lawyers will face the burden in court with arguing that there is an authentic crisis on the border that required the emergency designation.