Wasserman Schultz on Court Rejection of Border Wall Funding

Washington, July 4, 2019 “I will continue to fight his every attempt to steal resources from our military and their families to build this ineffective and narcissistic monument to nativism.”

(Sunrise, Fla.) – U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (FL-23) released this statement after an appeals court late yesterday upheld a lower court ruling that blocked the Trump Administration from tapping U.S. Defense Department funding for a border wall, in the Sierra Club v. Trump case. The U.S. House joined as an amicus curiae in support of the Sierra Club.

“This President wants to steal funds that Congress appropriated for the readiness of our military personnel to pay for a xenophobic border wall that Congress has repeatedly rejected on a bipartisan basis. This is reminiscent of what a king would try to do. Fortunately, President Trump is not a monarch. And we are a still a democracy.

As the appeals court majority rightly ruled, President Trump must respect our Constitution and Congress’s power of the purse. We all must challenge this President’s contempt for our Constitution, and as chair of the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Subcommittee, our FY20 bill includes a prohibition prospectively and retroactively to prohibit the transfer of these funds for anything other than the purpose for which Congress intended.  I will continue to fight his every attempt to steal resources from our military and their families to build this ineffective and narcissistic monument to nativism.”