Trump may declare national emergency
PRESIDENT Donald Trump, facing the prospect within days of the longest US government shutdown in history, was considering declaring a national emergency that would likely escalate a policy dispute with Democrats over his proposed US-Mexico border wall into a court test of presidential power.
To escape a political trap of his own making, Mr Trump suggested strongly on Thursday that he might declare an emergency so that he can bypass Congress to get funding for his wall, which was a central promise of his 2016 election campaign.
He originally pledged Mexico would pay for the wall, which he says is needed to stem the flow of illegal immigrants and drugs. But the Mexican government has refused. Mr Trump is now demanding that Congress provide $5.7 billion in US taxpayer funding for the wall.
That is opposed by Democrats in Congress, who call the wall an ineffective, outdated answer to a complex problem. The stand-off has left a quarter of the federal government closed down and hundreds of thousands of federal employees staying home on furlough or working for no pay and set to miss their pay checks.
With no Capitol Hill compromise in sight, Mr Trump publicly ruminated on Thursday during a trip to the Texas border about declaring an emergency.
The Wall Street Journal, NBC and the Washington Post, citing unnamed sources, reported that the White House had asked the US Army Corps of Engineers to look into diverting money from its budget towards the wall and to explore how fast construction could begin under an emergency declaration.
Critics of the national emergency strategy have said it may be illegal. In any case, it was almost certain to trigger an immediate court challenge from Democrats, including an accusation of trying to circumvent Congress’ power over the national purse strings.
That would push the wall impasse into the courts, allowing the government to be fully reopened while the judges weigh the case, which could take months.
“After the emergency announcement, the path towards construction via executive order may be as unclear as a storm at midnight. But it will at least allow the president to move out of the corner he’s boxed himself into,” said Charles Gabriel, analyst at strategy firm Capital Alpha Partners.
Partial government funding expired on December 22, leaving departments ranging from Justice, Agriculture and Treasury to Commerce and Homeland Security without money to operate programmes and pay their workers.
Senator Joe Manchin, a moderate Democrat who has had good relations with Mr Trump, said declaring a national emergency would be “wrong, but I think that’s his only way out.”