The Trump administration is arguing that the president’s national emergency declaration for the purpose of building a border wall cannot be reviewed by the courts and is not subject to any limitations. In doing so, the Administration flouted fundamental separation-of-powers principles and usurped for itself legislative power specifically vested by the Constitution in Congress. In that statute, Congress did not define or limit the term “emergency” or create any explicit right to challenge an emergency in court. The border wall is not a “military construction project,” it argued. Each of the eight lawsuits filed so far asserts that nothing resembling an emergency exists at the border, that the situation there is instead a long-running problem.

Source: Washington Post April 05, 2019 21:51 UTC