President Donald Trump doubled down on his claims that there is an immigration emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border on Friday, during a visit to the border in Calexico, California.

This is an absolute emergency, Trump said , speaking at a U.S. border patrol station in Calexico, where he participated in a roundtable discussion on immigration and border security.

People want to come in and they shouldnt be, the president added. Gang members and lots of others. Were getting them out.

Trump also decried what he called horrible loopholes in the immigration system, naming the visa lottery, so-called chain migration (a term immigration restrictionists use to describe allowing U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents to help their family members immigrate to this country), and declared the nations asylum laws to be totally broken.

There is indeed an emergency on our southern border, he repeated.

Earlier on Friday, California governor Gavin Newsom (D) announced that a coalition of 20 states was suing to challenge Trumps national emergency declaration to fund a wall on the southern border. The day before, leaders of the House of Representatives also voted to authorize a lawsuit against Trump over his emergency declaration to fund his border wall.

Trump declared a national emergency in mid-February, aiming to divert billions of dollars from the Defense Department and other earmarked government funds to construct a border wall. More than a dozen states sued later that month, challenging the declaration as unconstitutional.