President Trump has signaled his intention to formally declare a “national emergency” in order to siphon off emergency funds to pay for the border wall he promised Mexico would pay for. We begin today’s roundup with The New York Times and its editorial against the plan:
With his intention to declare a national emergency at the southern border, President Trump is planning to take executive overreach to dizzying new heights. The damage to American democracy threatens to linger long after his administration is no more than a dank memory.
To repeat: The influx of migrant families at the southern border does not constitute a national security crisis, much less a bona fide emergency. There is, at this point, a worsening humanitarian crisis, actively fueled by the draconian policies of the administration. But the suffering on display requires thoughtful policy adjustments, not a steel monstrosity.
USA Today’s editors also decry the plan:
Assuming that Congress is unable or unwilling to overrule Trump’s emergency declaration, it will almost certainly be challenged in court. That would mean a ruling on whether the situation at the border really is a national emergency. In all likelihood, the answer would be no. Illegal immigration and the influx of Central American asylum seekers are significant ongoing problems, not national crises like Pearl Harbor and the 9/11 attacks.
The legal challenge would also invite the courts to consider the broader question of whether Congress even has the right to cede its constitutionally derived powers, including the power of the purse, to the president. [...] All of this should prompt Republicans to ask: Is the extra wall money worth trampling on the Constitution, stretching the definition of emergency, setting a bad precedent and diverting money from other worthy projects?
The clear answer is no.
Here is Sally Kohn’s take at The Daily Beast:
[M]ore and more, Washington is bypassing Trump altogether. Trump’s national emergency stunt is designed solely to please his base because they’re the only people who affirmatively care what he does anymore. Incidentally, here’s a prediction: When congressional Republicans are up for re-election in 2020, they’ll be boasting they voted for the border security compromise and will avoid talking about Trump’s emergency declaration. The president’s coattails are turning into entrails.
Philip Bump at The Washington Post points out that beyond the legal issues, creating a national emergency is politically unpopular:
Polling has repeatedly shown that even those Americans whose land wouldn’t be seized oppose Trump taking this action.
In January, two-thirds of Americans — including more than a quarter of Trump’s own party — expressed opposition to a national emergency declaration in Quinnipiac University polling.
Sam Stein and Asawin Suebsaeng:
Mexico was not on the hook. Instead, taxpayers would foot the bill and the president would usurp Congress’ powers over the purse to get the rest.
It was, on a pure policy level, a reversal of his campaign pledge and a constitutional challenge to a co-equal branch of government. And yet, few in the Republican Party raised a stink. Indeed, with few exceptions, they cheered him on, framing his handling of the latest shutdown showdown as a stroke of strategic brilliance.
Matt Stieb at New York magazine dives into the details:
It wouldn’t be the first time Trump has attempted a major construction project with shoddy funding prospects. According to Foreign Policy, Congress expects that the Pentagon has $21 billion in “unobligated military construction funding,” money normally set aside for projects including the construction of hospitals and family housing both in war zones and at-home. Trump would call upon a legal provision that gives the president authority to re-route military construction funds during a national emergency. However, the White House would have to prove that the money is being used “in support of the armed forces.” “There will be legitimate question about whether building a fence along the border is in support of the armed forces,” one aide told Foreign Policy. “That would be worked out in court.” Bloomberg reports a smaller number – around $8 billion – pulled from the DoD’s military construction funding and drug interdiction programs, as well as some from the Treasury department’s drug forfeiture program.
Eugene Robinson says the real emergency is presidential abuse of power:
We have a national emergency, all right. Its name is Donald Trump,and it is a force of mindless, pointless disruption. [...]
It is an end run around Congress and, as such, constitutes a violation of his oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States” — which gives Congress, not the president, the authority to decide how public money is spent. It does not give Trump the right to fund projects that Congress will not approve. Authoritarian leaders do that sort of thing.
On a final note, don’t miss this op-ed in USA Today from Victorina Morales, a former Trump property worker:
When I was a child, my father was murdered in front of me and my siblings. After I was married and had left Guatemala, my children also witnessed a similar tragedy when my husband’s father also was murdered in front of their eyes.
Violence, corruption and poverty: Perhaps you can see why I chose to flee to America. So I walked and bused to this great country from Guatemala in 1999.
My children, husband and I built a life in New Jersey, and, in 2013, I began working at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, cleaning suites and surrounding businesses, as well as cleaning Mr. Trump’s and Ivanka Trump’s houses. The hours were long, but I made friends, and I could feed my children. The club always knew I was undocumented; I told them so before I was hired. No matter, they said, your old false documents will do.