Cecilia Wang

After more than a month of threats, a government shutdown, and bipartisan action by Congress, President Trump has finally declared a national emergency to spend billions of taxpayer dollars on his border wall obsession. In response, the ACLU will file a lawsuit early next week challenging this blatantly illegal executive action. Let’s get something straight upfront: There is no emergency. Members of Congress from both parties, security experts, and Americans who live at the border have all said so. What the president is doing is yet another illegal and dangerous power grab in service of his anti-immigrant agenda.

Today the Supreme Court announced that it was deadlocked on United States v. Texas. The one-line non-decision leaves unanswered the central question about the president’s authority to set policy guidelines for the exercise of prosecutorial discretion in the deportation system. But it is a non-decision with a profound impact.