Bill to end Trump border wall declaration enters House

By Michael Hernandez

WASHINGTON

House Democrats introduced a formal resolution of disapproval Friday in a bid to thwart U.S. President Donald Trump's border wall emergency declaration.

Trump last week made the announcement in a bid to circumvent the congressional appropriation process after lawmakers gave him only a small fraction of the $5.7 billion he had been seeking to build the U.S.-Mexico separation barrier.

His declaration has already been met with a slew of expected legal challenges, including more than a dozen states seeking to overturn the executive action.

The resolution entered by congressman Joaquin Castro and co-signed by more than 200 lawmakers in the House of Representatives marks the first congressional challenge to the controversial declaration, which Trump said he did not need to make when he announced it at the White House.

The resolution seeks the declaration's termination, and Trump has threatened to veto it should it reach his desk.

But unlike much of Washington's politics there has been a fair amount of bipartisan pushback to the president's declaration over concerns that it sets a dangerous precedent, and violates the Constitution's separation of powers.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi circulated a letter Thursday to all House lawmakers urging them to support the resolution, saying it "undermines the separation of powers and Congress’s power" over federal appropriations.

"The President’s decision to go outside the bounds of the law to try to get what he failed to achieve in the constitutional legislative process violates the Constitution and must be terminated," she wrote. "We have a solemn responsibility to uphold the Constitution, and defend our system of checks and balances against the President’s assault."

Republicans in the House and Senate have, to varying degrees, publicly warned against the president's action but with the Democratic-led resolution guaranteed to enter the Senate the president's congressional allies have an awkward test looming.

As a privileged resolution it will have to be taken up in the Senate within 18 days of the House’s passage, a near certain scenario with the Democratic majority solidly lined up behind the effort.

The House will vote on the measure Tuesday, according to Pelosi.