California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra warned in a national televised address Tuesday that he is prepared to take President Trump to court if he declares a national emergency to fund a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border while cutting federal funds to fire-damaged communities in this state.
Becerra delivered the remarks as part of the Democrats’ Spanish-language response to Trump’s State of the Union address. Speaking of his own upbringing as the son of Mexican immigrants, he denounced the president’s characterization of immigration, and the partial government shutdown over the construction of the wall.
“What we heard tonight was the same tired refrain of building walls,” Becerra said in a speech given at Sacramento’s C.K. McClatchy High School, the attorney general’s alma mater. “The idea of declaring a nonexistent state of emergency on the border, in order to justify robbing funds that belong to the victims of fires, floods, hurricanes, and droughts, to pay for the wall is not only immoral, it is illegal.
