No wall’s too tall for Trump
Prez shows he’s willing to go to new lengths in border push
WASHINGTON — President Trump proved just how far he’ll go to protect what has become the symbol of his presidency and the political base conservative talking heads have convinced him he must protect at all costs: a southern border wall. Causing 800,000 federal workers, many tasked with securing the very southern border Trump claims is in crisis, to miss paychecks is not a bridge too far. Nor is halting the work of food inspectors, drug and medical device reviewers, federal election commissioners, national park employees, federal financial industry watchdogs and more. Neither is mulling a national security declaration to allocate Defense Department funds for the wall, which would violate the spirit and possibly the letter of constitutional executive authority limits, and almost ensure a protracted legal battle. “This is a thing that the lawyers tell me is 100 percent,” Trump said Thursday, en route to a southern border site in Texas, of his ability to act unilaterally. Unless Democrats agree to include more than $5 billion in border wall funding in a bill to reopen the government, Trump said, “I will declare a national emergency.” Trump also fully abandoned his campaign promise that Mexico would pay for the wall, falsely claiming that he never said our southern neighbor would submit a payment to the United States. His campaign website and numerous campaign speeches asserted just that. Trump’s demanded wall has become a part of his political identity, deeply steeped in the “America first” notion that outsiders represent a threat to U.S. citizens, their safety and their culture. Embedded within is the notion — disproven by data provided by his own administration — that immigrants and asylum-seekers from our south are inherently dangerous, but also the false claim that they present the kind of immediate threat to the country that warrants emergency action. Border crossings have been on a years-long decline, and crime statistics going back decades show that immigrants, whether they entered the country legally or illegally, are less likely to commit crimes, including violent offenses. Not to mention that building a thousand-mile wall is all but logistically impossible. It would require extensive use of eminent domain to strip property rights from private owners, spurring a flood of litigation. It would also demand more physical labor than is likely available, given the current shortage in available construction laborers — that is, ironically, unless the project relies heavily on undocumented immigrant labor. Yet still, Trump persists. That persistence will result, as of Saturday, in the longest government shutdown in the nation’s history — a true national emergency.