WASHINGTON — More than 25 former Republican lawmakers and nearly 60 former senior national security officials appealed to Congress on Monday to kill President Trump’s declaration of a national emergency on the Mexican border, countering Republican leaders’ effort to hold down defections Tuesday on a scheduled House vote to block the president.
“It has always been a Republican fundamental principle that no matter how strong our policy preferences, no matter how deep our loyalties to presidents or party leaders, in order to remain a constitutional republic we must act within the borders of the Constitution,” wrote the former members of Congress, including Senators John Danforth, Chuck Hagel, Olympia J. Snowe and Richard Lugar, who implored Republicans to protect Congress’s constitutionally mandated power of the purse.
The security officials said there is neither a “documented terrorist or national security emergency at the southern border” nor an “emergency related to violent crime.”
The president’s assertions “are rebutted not just by the public record, but by his agencies’ own official data, documents, and statements,” the officials, including Madeleine Albright, the former secretary of state, and John O. Brennan, the former C.I.A. director, said in their declaration.
