Trump declares emergency over border wall
WILL HELP HIM DIVERT $3.6B BUDGETED FOR MILITARY PROJECTS TO BARRIER
US President Donald Trump yesterday declared a national emergency in a move designed to circumvent Congress and build additional barriers at the southern border, where he said the US faces “an invasion of our country.” Trump is seeking to secure about $6.5 billion more in funding than Congress approved in a bill passed on Thursday to avert another partial government shutdown. “This is plainly a power grab by a disappointed President, who has gone outside the bounds of the law to try to get what he failed to achieve in the constitutional legislative process,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said.
President Donald Trump formally declared a national emergency at the border yesterday to access billions of dollars to build a border wall that Congress refused to give him, transforming a highly charged policy dispute into a fundamental confrontation over separation of powers.
In a televised announcement in the Rose Garden, Trump said he was signing the declaration to protect the country from the flow of drugs, criminals and illegal immigrants coming across the southwestern border from Mexico, which he characterised as a profound threat to national security.
The declaration will enable Trump to divert $3.6 billion budgeted for military construction projects to the border wall, White House officials said. Trump will also use more traditional presidential budgetary discretion to tap $2.5 billion from counternarcotics programmes and $600 million from a Treasury Department asset forfeiture fund.
Combined with the $1.375 billion authorised for fencing in a spending package passed by Congress on Thursday night, Trump would then have about $8 billion in all to advance construction of new barriers and repairs or replacement of existing barriers along the border this year, significantly more than the $5.7 billion that Congress refused to give him.
The president’s decision, previewed on Thursday, triggered instant condemnation from Democrats and some Republicans, who called it an abuse of power. House Democrats plan to introduce legislation to block the president’s move, which could pass both houses if it wins the votes of the half-dozen Republican senators who have criticised the declaration. That would put the president in the position of issuing the first veto of his presidency. If such a legislative strategy failed to stop Trump, the issue would likely be taken to court, either by congressional Democrats, liberal advocacy groups or both.
The spending package passed by Congress on Thursday after a two-month showdown with the president included none of the $5.7 billion that Trump demanded for 234 miles (377km) of steel wall. Instead, it provided $1.375 billion for about 55 miles of fencing. Trump agreed to sign the package into law anyway to avoid a second government shutdown after the impasse over border wall funding closed the doors of many federal agencies for 35 days.