Trump Declares National Emergency To Build Mexico Wall

U.S. President Donald Trump announced Friday that he will
declare a national emergency to fulfill his pledge to construct a
wall along the Mexico border.

Trump said he will use executive powers to bypass Congress,
which approved far less money for his proposed wall than he had
sought.

Chicago Tribune reported that Trump plans to siphon billions of
dollars from federal military construction and counterdrug efforts
for the wall. The move is already drawing bipartisan criticism on
Capitol Hill and expected to face rounds of legal challenges.

“I am going to be signing a national emergency,” Trump said from
the Rose Garden, as he claimed illegal immigration marked “an
invasion of our country.”

In a rare show of bipartisanship, lawmakers voted Thursday to
fund large swaths of the government and avoid a repeat of this
winter’s debilitating five-week government shutdown. The money in
the bill for border barriers, about $1.4 billion, is far below the
$5.7 billion Trump insisted he needed and would finance just a
quarter of the 200-plus miles (322 kilometers) he wanted this
year.

To bridge the gap, Trump announced that he will be spending
roughly $8 billion on border barriers — combining the money
approved by Congress with funding he plans to repurpose through
executive actions, including the national emergency. The money is
expected to come from funds targeted for military construction and
counterdrug efforts, but aides could not immediately specify which
military projects would be affected.

Despite widespread opposition in Congress to proclaiming an
emergency, including by some Republicans, Trump was responding to
pressure to act unilaterally to soothe his conservative base and
avoid appearing like he’s lost his wall battle.

Word that Trump would declare the emergency prompted
condemnations from Democrats and threats of lawsuits from states
and others who might lose federal money or said Trump was abusing
his authority.

In an unusual joint statement, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi,
D-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said
such a declaration would be “a lawless act, a gross abuse of the
power of the presidency and a desperate attempt to distract” from
Trump’s failure to force Mexico to pay for the wall, as he’s
promised for years.

“Congress will defend our constitutional authorities,” they
said. They declined to say whether that meant lawsuits or votes on
resolutions to prevent Trump from unilaterally shifting money to
wall-building, with aides saying they’d wait to see what he
does.

Democratic state attorneys general said they’d consider legal
action to block Trump. Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rossello told the
president on Twitter “we’ll see you in court” if he makes the
declaration.

Even if his emergency declaration withstands challenge, Trump is
still billions of dollars short of his overall funding needed to
build the wall as he promised in 2016. After two years of effort,
Trump has not added any new border mileage; all of the construction
so far has gone to replacing and repairing existing structures.
Ground is expected to be broken in South Texas soon on the first
new mileage.

The White House said Trump wouldn’t try to redirect federal
disaster aid to the wall, a proposal they had considered but
rejected over fears of a political blowback.