Legal challenges to Trump's emergency declaration face uphill battle

Trump has painted illegal immigration and drug trafficking across the border as a national security threat

Democratic lawmakers, states and others mulling legal challenges to President Donald Trump’s national emergency declaration to obtain funds to build a US-Mexico border wall face an uphill and probably losing battle in a showdown likely to be decided by the conservative-majority Supreme Court, legal experts said.

After being rebuffed by the US Congress in his request for $5.7 billion to help build the wall that was a signature 2016 campaign promise, Trump on Friday invoked emergency powers given to the president under a 1976 law. The move, according to the White House, enables Trump to bypass lawmakers and redirect money already