“The House and Senate have now both passed a bipartisan resolution overturning President Trump’s declaration of an emergency at the southern border in order to usurp Congress’s power of the purse.  The Founders wrote a Constitution that enshrined the principle that the representatives of the American people and the states decide how taxpayer funds are appropriated, not the executive.  Today, we are standing in defense of our men and women in uniform, whose resources have been unfairly taken by the Administration as part of its effort to build an expensive and ineffective border wall.  We are also standing with those put at risk by the President’s decision to also take funding from FEMA and the Coast Guard that is intended to prepare for and respond to natural disasters in the middle of the hurricane season.

“This resolution also reflects the fact that the President’s assertion of a national security emergency at the border is false.  The crisis at the border is a humanitarian one, and it is a crisis of this President’s own making.  It’s time for this President and his advisors to stop taking taxpayer money from our military and disaster preparedness efforts and instead work with Congress to address the humanitarian catastrophe they have created at the border in a serious and responsible way.”