Trump is at it again. Having had his $5.7 billion proposal to build a 234 mile long wall along the US/Mexico border rejected once again by congress, US President Donald Trump last week took the incredibly questionable leap and declared a national emergency over the situation. The move allows him the freedom to divert over US$8 billion dollars otherwise earmarked for military projects and counternarcotics programs, and is the measure he claims will allow him to “stop an invasion of people, gangs and drugs” at the Mexican border of the United States once and for all.
The move has sparked outrage from governments and individuals worldwide, with many questioning the legality of the decision, and many more questioning the ethics and ongoing impact of the announcement. Until now, many U.S. presidents have declared national emergencies - Bush, in the wake of 9/11; and Obama during the swine flu outbreak of 2009; Truman, during the Korean War; and Carter, under the Iranian Hostage Crisis. Even for Trump this is not a first - in his presidency so far he has declared four national emergencies: one that imposed sanctions against general Maung Maung Soe for the Rohingya conflict in Myanmar, another that announced sanctions against human rights offender Daniel Ortega due to the situation in Nicaragua, and a third that enabled automatic sanctions in response to election interference.
During the Civil War and Great Depression, the declaration of a national emergency allowed essential funds to be diverted from otherwise non-urgent causes. In fact since 1976, when Congress passed the National Emergencies Act - which, interestingly, was designed to rein in presidential power and dictate more clearly how presidents were able to go about the declaration of emergencies - presidents have announced emergencies more than 58 times, with most of them in response to foreign crises.
However there remains to this day no definition of what constitutes a state of emergency.
According to Wikipedia, a state of emergency is “a situation in which a government is empowered to perform actions that it would normally not be permitted. ... Such declaration alerts citizens to change their normal behavior and orders government agencies to implement emergency plans.” In Trump’s instance, it allows him to do whatever he wants, with however much of taxpayers money he can get his hands on.
One of the key issues arising from the situation is the impact it will have on US national security. Particularly in the wake of the recent government shutdown, this declaration will divert significant and critical resources from more pressing matters - matters that merit the declaration of an emergency - and hurts the credibility of a democratic world power. The deployment of thousands of troops to the southern U.S. border alone is worrying and diverts those security forces from more critical areas of need.
Legally, the ramifications are far reaching. A coalition of 16 U.S. states have now filed a federal lawsuit to block Trump’s decision, claiming the decision to declare a national emergency is unconstitutional. Trump’s response was, shockingly, published via Twitter and demonstrated his anger at the pushback:
"As I predicted, 16 states, led mostly by Open Border Democrats and the Radical Left, have filed a lawsuit in, of course, the 9th Circuit! California, the state that has wasted billions of dollars on their out of control Fast Train, with no hope of completion, seems in charge!" he tweeted.
The lawsuit claims a preliminary injunction that prevents the president from acting on his emergency declaration until the case is heard in the courts and argues on the basis that the President is ‘robbing taxpayer funds’ to build his wall, in an effort to merely make good on his election promise. The lawsuit represents the beginnings of a whole host of anticipated legal challenges to Trump’s new scheme for building the wall, reflecting the polls which demonstrated little support for the wall and also the opinions of his own party, who rejected the notion of funding the wall for two years prior. At best, the case will be tied up in court for years, meaning Trump will be refused access to the funding until a resolution is found.
Whatever will Trump do next, should this scheme fail? It has been suggested that the only way Trump can win is to shift the debate to a place where he has better leverage and where he can use the threat of a sequester, rather than a government shutdown, to force the Democrats to say yes to the building of the wall. But this surprise announcement of a national emergency could seriously hurt his chances of succeeding, particularly since he himself publicly declared he “didn’t need to do this”, which thereby renders the move unnecessary and therefore, unconstitutional. Trump further hurt his case by adding that the only reason for his declaration was to build the wall “much faster”.
An emergency is defined as a situation that poses an immediate risk to health, life, property, or environment, and requires “urgent intervention to prevent a worsening of the situation”. Does the situation at the U.S. southern border with Mexico justify this label? Many will agree the situation hasn’t changed, or worsened, in many years, so this is highly questionable.