Trump’s talk of ‘lawless state’ puts focus of immigration strategy on Texas
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address, billed as a plea for unity and bipartisanship, came amid a threat to go around Congress to make good on his campaign promise of building a wall on the southwestern border.
Trump’s border wall strategy, more than a month in the making, has narrowed through the recent government shutdown talks and appears now to be aimed squarely at the Rio Grande Valley and Texas, which he highlighted last month in a visit to McAllen.
“Simply put, walls work and walls save lives,” Trump said in his address Tuesday night, citing the example of El Paso. “So let’s work together, compromise and reach a deal that will truly make America safe.”
But unless he can break the partisan stalemate and circumvent another partial government
shutdown in 10 days, the remedy he has proposed is the declaration of a national emergency, a measure that has alarmed liberals and conservatives alike.
While Tuesday’s speech was intended to talk up the economy and tout the accomplishments of his administration, it was his message on immigration and the border wall — the central issue in the 35-day government shutdown — that struck some of the deepest chords among Texans in Congress.
Adding to the sense of urgency was Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen’s announcement hours before the speech that a new “caravan” of about 2,000 migrants had arrived at the southern border in Piedras Negras, across the river from Eagle Pass.
Trump stopped short of using the State of the Union address to declare a national emergency. But he helped make the case, saying “The lawless state of our southern border is a threat to the safety, security, and financial well-being of all Americans.”
Although Trump has received support for a wall from most Texas Republicans, some have expressed reservations about the president’s claim of executive power to reallocate money Congress has approved for military construction and other projects.
Some, including Texas U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, pointedly rejected a plan floated last month to use unspent disaster relief funds, an idea that the White House promptly walked back.
Cornyn, one of the top Republicans in the Senate, questioned the utility of resorting to national emergency powers to redirect federal spending, saying it would almost certainly spark legal challenges that could take years to resolve.
“Then there’s just the general concern about (whether) presidents can essentially usurp the Constitutional role of Congress to appropriate money,” he said Tuesday.
Shutdown redux
Other prominent Republicans also sought to distance themselves from Trump’s threat to invoke emergency powers to build a wall.
“I do think this is a route we don’t want to go down,” Texas Republican Michael McCaul, the former chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said Tuesday in a television interview. “Only if Congress gives the president no other choice but to declare an emergency.”
Other Texas Republicans expressed similar misgivings but sought to lay the blame on Democrats.
“If Democrats are so upset about the emergency declaration, they need to come to the table and negotiate, said U.S. Rep. Brian Babin of Woodville, appearing on Fox News. “We’re asking for $5.7 billion dollars out of a trilliondollar-plus budget. It’s less than one-tenth of 1 percent of our budget. How can they tell us this is money they can’t find? This is national security.”
A new CNN poll found that by a 31-66 percent margin, Americans are opposed to Trump declaring a national emergency in order to build the border wall. The margin is 24-73 percent among women and 34-63 percent among independents.
While continuing to press for $5.7 billion in new wall funding, Trump also has maintained that he is using money left over from the 2017 and 2018 budget years to shore up or build nearly 20 miles of border barriers in Texas.
New barrier segments
Existing border contracts announced in November would cover a total of 18 miles in the Lone Star State — 14 miles of levee wall in the Rio Grande Valley and four of new steel bollard wall to replace existing fencing in El Paso.
The contracts in the Rio Grande Valley, worth $312 million, include 8 miles of new levee wall construction in five segments south of Alamo, Donna, Weslaco, Progresso and Mercedes. Another 6 miles lie within the McAllen Station area. Both projects were slated to begin in February.
Democrats, meanwhile, have shown little sign of backing away from their opposition to any new spending on wall construction, a position that put them at loggerheads with the administration, forcing a monthlong partial government shutdown.
San Antonio U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, brother of presidential candidate Julian Castro, sent a message on immigration by inviting a “Dreamer” from Texas A&M as a guest.
“We must continue to show the American people that those the president tries to demonize are just like you and me, and deserve a pathway to citizenship so they too can achieve their own version of the American dream,” said Castro, chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.
Despite Trump’s call for reconciliation, he spent the hours ahead of the speech on Twitter taunting Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (“He’s just upset that he didn’t win the Senate …”) and issuing new warnings about the migrant caravan and the need for a wall.
“Tremendous numbers of people are coming up through Mexico in the hopes of flooding our Southern Border,” he tweeted. “We have sent additional military. We will build a Human Wall if necessary. If we had a real Wall, this would be a non-event!”