Governor, AG announce suit against Trump

ALBUQUERQUE — Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and Attorney General Hector Balderas announced Monday that they will take President Donald Trump to court “over his inappropriate and overreaching” declaration of a national emergency.

Officials in other states, including California, have also said they plan to sue in an effort to block the order.

Trump on Friday declared a national emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border calling it “a major entry point for criminals, gang members, and illicit narcotics” and one that threatens “core national security interests.” The declaration is aimed at securing more money for his signature border wall.

Both Lujan Grisham and Balderas are blasting the president for the declaration, saying that it would divert funds “crucial to the protection of New Mexicans away from their proper channels and puts New Mexico’s economy and people at risk.”

“As Attorney General of a border state, I am appalled that President Trump would bypass the rule of law, manufacture an ‘emergency,’ and weaken our national defense and readiness for a potential terrorist attack or catastrophic natural disaster,” Balderas said in a statement. “I stand ready to join with our state partners to file against and prevent this abhorrent misuse of executive power.”

Lujan Grisham called the declaration “absurd and dangerous” and “a bald-faced end run around Congress.”

“The president, plainly desperate, is attempting to set an autocratic precedent that has … absolutely no place in our country,” Lujan Grisham said in a statement. “As I have said, his futile demand for a border wall does nothing to address the legitimate humanitarian and public safety concerns at the border, and his continued fear-mongering is actively harmful, as would be his wall. There is zero real-world basis for an emergency declaration, and there will be no wall.”