California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said Monday that nearly 13 states are working on a lawsuit to block President Donald Trump's national emergency.
"We should be filing sometime today," Becerra told CNN’s Kate Bolduan. "We're going to try to halt the President from violating the Constitution, the separation of powers, from stealing money from Americans and states that has been allocated by Congress, lawfully."
"If the President is essentially stealing money that's been allocated to go to the various states for various purposes but no longer will, we're being harmed, our people are being harmed," he added.
The American Civil Liberties Union, the Border Network for Human Rights and the Center for Biological Diversity all announced intentions to file lawsuits soon after Trump made the declaration.
"The Constitution assigns Congress the power of the purse, and no prior president has ever tried to use emergency powers to fund a chosen project -- particularly a permanent, large-scale domestic project such as this -- against congressional will. This is obviously improper," said Dror Ladin, an ACLU staff attorney with their National Security Project.