US President Donald Trump said on Friday he would declare a national emergency at the United Sates-Mexico border, a move expected to plunge him into a fight with Democrats over what they call an unconstitutional attempt to fund a wall without approval from Congress.
Trump had demanded Congress include money for the wall, one of his biggest 2016 campaign promises, in a funding bill he was expected to sign either later on Friday or Saturday. It was approved overwhelmingly by Congress late on Thursday without the wall money he wanted, a legislative defeat for him.
A national emergency, if not blocked by the courts or Congress, would allow Trump to dip into funds politicians had approved for other purposes to build a border wall.
The spending measure, lacking any money for his wall, is a defeat for Trump in Congress, where his demand for $5.7bn in barrier funding yielded no results, other than a record-long 35-day partial government shutdown that damaged the US economy and his poll numbers.
The measure does include $1.37bn in funding for physical barriers, but no money for concrete walls.
‘An illusion’
Reorienting his wall-funding quest towards a legally uncertain strategy based on declaring a national emergency could plunge Trump into a lengthy battle with Democrats and divide his fellow Republicans.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Democrats are prepared to respond appropriately to a declaration of national emergency.
“If the president can declare an emergency on something that he has created as an emergency – an illusion that he wants to convey – just think of what a president with different values can present to the American people,” Pelosi, a Democrat, said on Thursday, pointing to gun violence in the United States as a national emergency.
Even before the White House announced that Trump would declare an emergency, Republican senators, while sympathetic to his view that the southern border is in crisis, were sceptical of the declaration that would shift funds to the wall from other commitments set by Congress.
“No crisis justifies violating the Constitution,” Republican Senator Marco Rubio said on Twitter on Thursday.
Republican Senator John Cornyn told reporters on Capitol Hill he had concerns about an emergency declaration. He said it “would not be a practical solution, because there would be a lawsuit filed immediately and the money would be presumably balled up”.
Some Republicans were more supportive of Trump’s tactic. “I’m not uncomfortable. I think the president’s probably on pretty solid ground,” said Republican Senator Richard Shelby.
Reallocating funds
Fifteen Democrats in the Republican-controlled Senate introduced legislation to prevent the transfer of funds from accounts Trump likely would target to pay for his wall.
A senior White House official said the administration had found nearly $7bn to reallocate to the wall, including $600m from a Treasury Department forfeiture fund, $2.5bn from a Defense Department drug interdiction fund and $3.5bn from a military construction budget.
The funds would cover just part of the estimated $23bn cost of the wall promised by Trump along the 2,000-mile (3,200km) border with Mexico.
The Senate Democrats’ bill also would stop Trump from using appropriated money to acquire lands to build the wall unless specifically authorized by Congress.
Trump says the wall is needed to curb irregular immigrants and illicit drugs streaming across the southern border.
But statistics show that irregular immigration has dropped to a 20-year low and that many drug shipments are likely smuggled through official ports of entry, leading critics to argue a wall is not needed.
SOURCE:
Al Jazeera and news agencies
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