by Connor O'Brien
Nineteen states are going to court to stop the Trump administration from diverting billions of dollars from the military toward a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.
The newly filed federal lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Northern California is the latest backlash against President Donald Trump's diversion of $3.8 billion from the Pentagon toward the border, which also has some Republican defense hawks on edge on Capitol Hill.
The lawsuit says diverting billions from defense programs in the states, including from National Guard accounts, "will cause damage to their economies, harming their proprietary interests." The states also argue that the diversion of money already allocated by lawmakers toward a border wall violates Congress' appropriation powers.
The states involved in the lawsuit are: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and Wisconsin.
"This year’s victim of his taxpayer money grab is the National Guard, which would lose critical funds to secure essential equipment for our troops,” California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said in a statement. "Congress has repeatedly and explicitly rejected taxpayer funding for a wasteful Trump wall along the border. We're going to court — once again — to remind Donald Trump that even the President is not above the law."
Trump declared a national emergency last year to divert money from military infrastructure projects and counterdrug accounts to finance border barriers. Nearly $10 billion has been shifted from Pentagon coffers since then.
In addition to money cut from fighter jet procurement and shipbuilding programs, the Pentagon rerouted $1.3 billion from National Guard and Reserve equipment, accounts for which Congress has typically sought to allocate increased funding.
The money shift targeted accounts that were boosted by Congress above and beyond the administration's annual budget request that Pentagon leaders argue were ahead of need. That justification has lawmakers in both parties miffed that the administration is undermining Congress' power of the purse.
At a House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee hearing Tuesday with top National Guard and Reserve officers, ranking Republican Ken Calvert of California called the money shift "troublesome" and warned lawmakers could "lose control of the appropriating process."
"This kind of reprogramming has to end," Calvert said. "There's going to be a future president at some point, maybe President [Bernie] Sanders, who may want to create a national emergency and move money into Health and Human Services."
National Guard Bureau Chief Gen. Joseph Lengyel, testifying before the panel, said he was told about the move two days before it was submitted to Congress but wasn't consulted on what accounts would be raided.
Last week, the American Civil Liberties Union, Sierra Club and the Southern Border Communities Coalition sued the administration challenging the latest border wall reprogramming.
For more information contact us at http://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment