Trump Declares National Emergency to Stop ‘Invasion of Our Country With Drugs, Human Traffickers’
“We don’t control of our own border.”
President Donald Trump declared a national emergency to get funding for a border wall in order to stop “an invasion of our country with drugs, with human traffickers, with all types of criminals and gangs.” He also said that America doesn’t “control our own border.”
From CNN:
“I’m going to be signing a national emergency, and it’s been signed many times before. It’s been signed by other presidents from 1977 or so it gave the presidents the power,” Trump said. “There’s rarely been a problem. They sign it, nobody cares. I guess they weren’t very exciting.”
The President argued that he is doing so to address “an invasion of our country with drugs, with human traffickers, with all types of criminals and gangs.”
“We don’t control our own border,” Trump said. “We’re going to confront the national security crisis on our southern border and we’re going to do it – one way or the other we have to do it.”
Trump went on to repeat his past talking points about “tremendous amounts of drugs” crossing into the US from the southern border — even though the majority of those drugs come through ports of entry — and addressed the issue of human trafficking.
Trump promised that America will “confront the national security crisis on our southern border … one way or the other, we have to do it.”
The president also predicted that his national emergency declaration will lose at the federal court circuit and appeals court and will end up in the Supreme Court.
John Roberts at Fox asked Trump about taking money from the Department of Defense. Trump replied that he doesn’t think it’s that important as generals have told him it’s not a problem taking money from military projects in order to pay for the wall.
Previous Reporting
Today at the WH, at a 10AM/ET event in the Rose Garden, Pres trump expected to sign the DHS funding bill to avert another partial Govt shutdown at midnight. Also his declaration of National Emergency, to access some $6.5-billion for border wall construction.
— Mark Knoller (@markknoller) February 15, 2019
ABC News reported on Thursday:
A senior White House official familiar with the plan told ABC News that $1.375 billion would come from the spending bill Congress passed Thursday; $600 million would come from the Treasury Department’s drug forfeiture fund; $2.5 billion would come from the Pentagon’s drug interdiction program; and through an emergency declaration: $3.5 billion from the Pentagon’s military construction budget.
Ed Morrissey at Hot Air broke down the math:
If $1.37 billion pays for 55 miles of the wall, as has been stated repeatedly this week, that puts the wall at around $25 million a mile. The Pentagon’s construction budget will pay for 140 more miles, and the combination of the drug-war accounts would pay for 124 miles. All told, the entire package would allow for the construction of 319 miles of wall.
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Comments
Maybe I’m not getting it, maybe there’s some 4D chess going on I can’t see, but this bill he plans to sign is worse than the one he signed before, when he said he’d never sign such a bill again. He gets nothing in this bill! Worse, those poison pills will tie him in knots.
Secondly, Dems and activist groups will tie him up in court for the rest of the year if he declares an emergency.
I don’t see why he doesn’t refuse to sign the bill and then declare an emergency. Let the damn government shut down.
It’s all in plain sight. DJT knows how to use advisors, including lawyers and accountants.
There is money sloshing around in our Federal budget, that has already been authorized for spending, apparently enough to pay for the next phase of construction and enforcement along our border. He is staying completely within the rules. I would hazard a guess that he is also depriving some entrenched friends and family of politicians of some goodies they had in mind.
The Democrats’ real objection is that the contracts are not going to the people they had in mind.
This “controversy” is not about anything wrong with DJT’s actions or policies. It is venal.
Ever you fiscal year sign 2009 has been a continuing resolution. Which means we spend the same amount as last year and then they end up adding more on top of it. In 2009 the $700,000,000,000 “stimulus package” was spent. We’ve been spending that $700B ever year since without Congress appropriating it anywhere in particular. That was Obama’s slush fund for his liberal projects and the reason the national debt has been out of control ever since. Spend that money on the wall one time and then kill it for good.
*Million or billion? it makes a difference.
This is bad. Congress continues to shirk its Constitutional responsibilities, allowing and encouraging the Executive Branch to rule by Executive Order. The President rules by fiat. It’s hard to see an upside to this. Impatience rules the day. A republic is designed to be a slow creature. Major, major, major mistake by Trump.
To “Windbag,” how exactly is the President ruling by fiat when he is exercising the statutory authority Congress itself has granted and he is fulfilling his constitutional duty to defend the borders of the United States?
Or maybe more accurate to say, if it is “ruling by fiat,” it is perfectly legal rule contemplated by the Constitution.
I am surprised that Trump didn’t have the Surgeon General standing there with him because one of the biggest dangers to our country is the “Old” diseases that are coming across the border daily. We had almost eradicated most of them and now there is a resurgence. Also, where was the HSA director talking about the danger of terrorist coming over the unguarded border? Where was the Education Secretary talking about the expense of the illegal children to our nation’s school system? Where was the AG Whitaker talking about the MS-13 gangs and the mayhem they cause? If this isn’t a crisis then I can’t imagine one. Also, Trump is going to kill his support if he signs this bill. Mke them override a veto to stop him. This is a Demorat bill through and through! Where were the Republican’s during the negotiations?
“Where were the Republican’s during the negotiations?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8IkbCeZ9to
The creatures outside looked from pig to man and from man to pig…
I am not sure if I like this move by Trump. If he can limit it, it might work. But I do blame the Democrats for putting revenge and hatred before the interests of the country. It is clear that their rejection of the wall is not built on any factual findings or expert opinion but is build on the desire to tweak Trump’s nose. Such legislating cannot end well.
The Dems are still doing everything in their power to delegitimatize Trump. Negotiating in bad faith is just another ploy. Whoever the Republicans sent to the budget negotiations must be the biggest dumb*sses in the world to let the Dems pull these shenanigans or they are really playing for the other team. I suspect a little of both.
By Ace of Spades this morning (www.Ace.Mu.Nu):
You know, a long time ago, I knew a guy who was a senior legislative staffer for a Republican congressman.
He told me that Democrats routinely build traps and poison pills into bills. Sometimes, for example, they’ll pretend to concede a legal point to Republicans, but then they’ll deliberately write the law in such an aggressive way that they know a liberal interest group will challenge it as unconstitutional and easily win, because it was written to be unconstitutional.
And thus, the “concession” granted by the Democrats disappears like morning mist, but the concessions granted by Republicans — usually about money — remain.
The Democrats win it all.
But you probably knew that. And that’s not the point I’m making.
Here’s the point I’m making:
I asked him why Republicans don’t take this crap out of bills — are they incompetent?
“No,” he told me. “They know they’re in there. They want them there. They want the credit for having gotten what appears to be a conservative victory, but they’re actually liberal-leaning (or at least they fear a liberal backlash at home) and they want Democrats to ‘steal’ their victory away.”
So anyway, this guy was always trying to take this garbage out of bills, and his Republican colleagues were fighting to keep this shit in.
He told me this like 12, 13 years ago. He is who he says he is (his resume is genuine) and he never gave me reason to think he wasn’t generally honest.
Failure Theater.
And now I fear that Trump has been enlisted as a Lead in this latest performance of Failure Theater, scripted by “Republicans” who pretend to be conservative but ho are actually very much aligned with the urban cosmopolitan liberals.
Sadly, your explanation seems very accurate based on what I’ve seen play out in Congress over the years. It is very discouraging to conservatives.
He is the Commander in Chief doing his duty to defend the borders of the United States. He is also exercising the discretionary authority Congress has granted him, just as every President in the last 40 years has done. The real problem concerns how that monstrosity of a Act might affect the situation. I want to support him because the alternative (President Warren, Spartacus?) is unthinkable but there are serious issues with that Act.
Have to walk back some concerns with that Act. It’s bad but fortunately only a temporary bad, expiring September 30, 2019. And it’s clear the President had no real option to reject it. A shutdown battle would not have advanced the Administration’s interests.
If I remember correctly, one of the statutes he can invoke allows him to suspend almost all laws etc during the emergency. Is it possible for him to suspend the poison pills in the newly signed bill? I’m thinking of the National park restrictions, conferring with local mayors etc.
Well, no, this is not entirely accurate. The entire omnibus is not set expire on Sept. 30, apparently just the funding for the wall is, along with some, but not all, of its provisions. If the Trump admin cannot get the Democrat pols/officials in the only approved wall area (i.e. the Rio Grande Valley. Hint: not MAGA territory) to approve the wall, they cannot even begin construction. In other words, there is little hope that even one inch of the border will ever be built under this bill.
Trump is hoping that the 1,169-page bill can somehow be overridden by his national emergency declaration. It’s not at all clear that it can be.
I’m not seeing a win here for America (or for Trump).
“that puts the wall at around $25 million a mile.”
Hey. My company will do it for two-thirds of that amount. Sign me up.
So, did Trump sign the worthless pork-ulus bill or not?
The headlines on memeorandum are nothing but frantic fuming about Trump enacting this national emergency (his 4th one since elected, btw). I can’t find anything definite about his signing the pork-ulus into law.
Help me out, please.
It’s a bargain at twice the price.
Maybe Trump is going to sit on the bill, and then refuse to sign. based on Trump’s past conduct, it seems to me that Trump is likely to something to upset the applecart.
I am also not a fan of this executive authority or the spending bill but on the flip side what are the alternatives? I keep hearing about this precedent Trump is setting that will allow a D president to do the same thing in declaring national emergencies for gun control or healthcare – do you honestly believe they wouldn’t do that anyway regardless of what Trump does here? Obama did it routinely with much fanfare using the celebrated pen and paper.
At this point democrats are trying to import D voters en masse- Beto said as much the other day. Pelosi is now in control of Congress – I don’t know if better alternatives exist at this point besides accelerating judicial appointments to breakneck speed.
I agree. Remember the infamous Gang of 14 when Bush the Younger had his judges being blocked by Democrat filibuster. In that “compromise” the GOP Senate majority threatened (and later backed off) ending the judicial filibuster only to see Democrats gain power and end it to ram through their own judges.
No matter what Trump does a future Democrat president will try to implement gun control by emergency order – period.
I was thinking last night that thousands of legal immigrants were trying to get though the wall of the mothers womb but Democrats are blocking kids them from coming to America.
“declaring national emergencies for gun control”
Congressional authorization per US code does not allow a president to override the constitution, the 2nd amendment. So, no, Pelosi can BS all she wants, it’s not the same thing.
If he signs that immigration capitulation viva cartels bill, the rest is moot.
The national emergency order is moot. A Democrat or GOPe Federal judge will block the order because Orangemanbad.
Trump is a treasonous liar! He neither needs an emergency nor a funding bill to stop illegal entry. This “can’t deport asylum seekers” is a total LIE! He has always had the authority to close the southern border completely and summarily deport anyone caught crossing. This would have put the entire crisis on Mexico, and Mexico would have miraculously eliminated illegal immigration within six months or Mexico would have gone bankrupt instead.
Trump seems concerned if he uses all his powers, the media will be even more over the top vicious, and he’ll lose re-election.
The most likely scenario is that Trump has finally decided that he is not going to win the battle over the wall with Congress. So, he will avoid a government shutdown and “fund” the wall in such a way that even though it will likely be blocked for the rest of his term, he can still claim he attempted to build it and was stymied by the Democrats and GOPe members. And, he may have a point. Neither the Dems nor the Establishment GOP wants any change to the immigration status quo.
Trump will continue moving on the economy, which is actually improving.
So he did sign the amnesty and capitulation act of 2019, but almost the entire GOP folded.
Senate Republicans who voted against the immigration capitulation bill were:
Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton, Marco Rubio, Ben Sasse, Tim Scott, Pat Toomey, Rand Paul,
Mike Lee, Jim Inhofe, Josh Hawley, Mike Braun
Dims who voted no:
Warren, Booker, Gillebrand, Markey, Harris
R’s are easy to explain in most cases, the D’s not.
https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=116&session=1&vote=00026
I here the Dems. that voted no because there was money included for the wall.
The illegals [aka 3rd-world craphole invaders] are a late Stage 3 cancer and it is rapidly developing into Stage 4. Our sovereignty, language, culture, and economic standing … all is at stake. I piss on both parties for allowing this to happen. I truly pray for some civil war. I hope 10,000,000 pissed off, heavily armed American citizen patriots march to the border, and let the lead freely fly at anyone crossing the border illegally.
What’s the gubmint going to do … arrest 10,000,000 patriots and put them in jail? This is a numbers game … it’s always been a numbers game. I can’t believe the “average American” is putting up with this crap. Oh wait … American Idol is on … gotta go!
Question, if they take this to court and they rule against him, will it also rule that DACA is also invalid?
There might be an interesting play here?