SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 18 (Xinhua) -- Sixteen U.S. states including California Monday jointly sued U.S. President Donald Trump to challenge his bid to declare national emergency over funding a wall between the United States and Mexico.
The lawsuit, led by California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in San Francisco, was joined by attorneys general from Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon and Virginia.
"Our goal here is simple: we're trying to stop @realdonaldtrump from violating the Constitution, the separation of powers, from stealing money from Americans and states that has been allocated by #Congress, lawfully," Becerra tweeted Monday.
He said the legal action, filed on U.S. Presidents Day, was aimed at preventing Trump from "unilaterally robbing taxpayer funds lawfully set aside by Congress for American people."
"For most of us, the Office of the Presidency is not a place for theatre," said Becerra who showed the file document on his twitter account.
Trump's emergency declaration and diversion of funds is unconstitutional and the states seek to block "the Trump Administration's emergency declaration, the unauthorized construction of the border wall, and any illegal diversion of Congressionally-appropriated funds," Becerra said in a statement issued by his office.
"Today, on Presidents Day, we take President Trump to court to block his misuse of presidential power," he said.
The complaint came a few days after Trump announced last week that he will take executive action, including a national emergency, to obtain funds for his long-promised wall on the southern U.S. border.
Democrat-dominated House declined to fulfill Trump's request for 5.7 billion U.S. dollars to help build the wall that the president promised in his 2016 campaign for presidency.
