President Donald Trump has announced that he will sign the compromise spending bill struck between Democrats and Republicans this week, which will avert another government shutdown and provide $1.375 billion for new barriers along the southern border. Unhappy with that amount—he had requested $5.7 billion from Congress—Trump said on Friday that he will sign a national emergency to access billions more in taxpayer funds for his wall.

“It’s a great thing to do. Because we have an invasion of drugs, invasion of gangs, invasion of people, and it’s unacceptable,” he said in a Rose Garden speech. “It’s very simple. We want to stop drugs from coming into our country. We want to stop criminals and gangs from coming into our country.”

Many Democrats, and some Republicans, are alarmed by his daring attempt to further expand presidential power. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who is running for president, called the declaration an “outrageous abuse of power.” Another 2020 candidate, Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, took it a step further:

Every time a president declares a "national emergency" in order to get his way on a particular issue, the closer we are to a dictatorship. Who needs Congress or the people if the president can make the decision on issues by himself? Very dangerous precedent. — Tulsi Gabbard (@TulsiGabbard) February 14, 2019

Trump’s declaration does not reflect any sort of Reichstag fire moment. He is not suspending the Constitution or the rule of law. But it’s certainly an unprecedented move. Past presidents have typically invoked emergency powers in good faith, and in ways that Congress intended—in response to terrorism or overseas conflicts, for instance. Trump is doing so purely for political gain, to show his flagging base of supporters that he’s serious about fulfilling his signature campaign promise—even as polls show that a majority of Americans oppose the wall and the idea of declaring a national emergency to build it.

Trump insists that the situation at the southern border constitutes a “national security crisis,” but the facts don’t support his justification for declaring a state of emergency. Border crossings have been in steady decline for more than a decade, undocumented immigrants commit fewer crimes than American-born citizens, most drugs are smuggled into the U.S. through or near legal ports of entry. If Trump really cared about stopping the illegal drug trade, he wouldn’t reportedly be plundering $2.5 billion from the Defense Department’s drug interdiction program as part of his executive gambit to secure more wall funding.