The Open Forum Trump’s declaration is an abuse of presidential power
As a Christian pastor working closely with the immigrant and refugee community, I am outraged that President Donald Trump has declared a national emergency on our southern border. The fact that the president is circumventing the will of the people and congressional oversight to purloin billions for his border wall is detestable, unlawful and unprecedented overreach by the executive branch.
Believing all lives are sacred and everyone has the God-given inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, his actions are deplorable and a violation of human rights. The president’s continuing disdain for human rights by inventing imaginary enemies — in this case, migrants at the southern border — as a unifying cause for his base is immoral.
We cannot accept any compromise on human rights, family separation, the well-being of our border communities and further militarization of the border. I call on all people of faith to stand on the side of justice and our core beliefs to do everything in our power to challenge and defeat this false and deceptive declaration of a national emergency.
Americans overwhelmingly voted in a Democratic House of Representatives in the midterms in order to balance the power in Washington and to put a check on President Trump. The Democratic House and the Republican Senate spent the last few weeks hammering out a compromise on border security, a compromise where neither group obtained everything they desired. That is the way democracy is supposed to work.
Now the president decides to declare a “national emergency” because he did not get everything he wanted out of the bipartisan compromise. This act rejects the voice of the majority of Americans as heard in the midterms, rejects the idea of bipartisan compromise and finally rejects the very American constitutional tradition of separation of powers.
Let’s hope our Colorado contingent of representatives and senators protect our system of government by rejecting the president’s action.
When Trump was elected president, many thought that was a national emergency. But, we never expected him to admit it.
If Republicans in Congress stand by and allow this to happen, I’d better not hear one single complaint or criticism from them if, in the future, a Democratic president decides to do the same thing and declare true emergencies — such as the national gun violence epidemic or global warming — as “national emergencies” to get more funding for them.
Webster’s seventh new collegiate dictionary defines an emergency as “an unforeseen combination of circumstances or the resulting state that calls for immediate action.”
I would expect any president of the United States to remain in Washington to guide this nation through such a situation.
Donald Trump announced a “national emergency” and then the very same day left the White House to go on a golfing vacation. Is this the kind of action we expect from a president who is dealing with a “national emergency?”
Also, in his statement, he said he really didn’t have to declare a “national emergency.” It seems logical that if you really do not need to call an emergency, it really is not an emergency. What more does he have to do before we realize this person is not mentally or emotionally fit for this office? Send letters of 250 words or fewer to openforum@denverpost.com or 5990 Washington St., Denver, CO, 80216. Please include full name, city and phone number. Contact information is for our purposes only; we will not share it with anyone else. You can reach us by telephone at 303-954-1201.