Trump Declares National Emergency to Build Mexico-US Border Wall

Donald Trump has taken a desperate route this Friday and has declared a national emergency in the United States in order to move funds for the construction of the controversial border wall with Mexico. Failed his project in Congress, the president will appeal to the special powers to raise funds alleging a crisis of illegal immigration and entry of drugs.

The first is hardly supported by the figures number of undocumented families arriving at the border has reached a record, but the number of people crossing illegally is far from its maximum two decades ago. And the second, the entry of drugs, has few signs of slowing down with a wall, given the routes that drug trafficking networks usually use to introduce them into the United States. In addition, the very concept of emergency squeaked with a battle that has been open in Washington for months.

Trump has made the announcement in the garden of the White House, accompanied by relatives of a man murdered by a foreigner without papers, in a very graphic way to link irregular immigration and crime. “We are talking about an invasion of our country, drugs, crimes, human trafficking,” he said. ” I am going to sign an emergency declaration as other presidents have done before me for less important things this is something very important,” he insisted. At one point, in the round of questions from the journalists, he has betrayed himself and has admitted that it can become a long litigation material: “I did not need to do this, I just wanted to do it faster”.

The US Constitution states that you can not use any money from the Treasury without a law of Congress, but another 1976 rule authorizes the president to arrogate special powers in cases of emergency. Trump plans to use an executive order for the wall, a very controversial and politically plagued road of legal doubts. Already, on Thursday afternoon, when their intentions were known, the Democratic leader in Congress, Nancy Pelosi, warned at a press conference that it was an emergency “created by him” and left the door open to litigation.

The chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, estimated in approximately 8,000 million dollars (about 7,095 million euros) the item that the Government may have with this declaration to strengthen security at the border. Specifically, Trump will have access to 3,600 million budgeted for construction projects for the military, 2,500 million for a narcotics program and 600 million Treasury funds of seized resources, in addition to the 1,375 million that Republican and Democratic lawmakers They had agreed to fences at the border.

What is not clear is whether this resource will go forward smoothly. The Democrats can try to block it in Congress (although they would need the support of the Senate, controlled by the Republicans) or take it to a judge, something that can also be done by social or private organizations, as happened with the immigration veto. The president himself anticipated a legal battle. “We will end up in the Supreme Court and I hope we have a fair deal and win,” he said. Progressive California was the first state to announce a lawsuit.

The move comes after the two instances of the US Congress, the House of Representatives and the Senate approved a budget package on Thursday with the support of a broad bipartisan majority. Republicans and Democrats had reached consensus to guarantee the financing of the Administration until, at least, September, but the bill did not satisfy the president because he did not grant the 5,700 million dollars (5,055 million euros) he had requested to start the wall on the border.

Only contemplated, however, the aforementioned 1,375 million for “fenced” and “barriers.” Even so, he resigned to veto it, that is, to not sign the law once approved in the Capitol, which would have led the Administration to a new closure,

To avoid the image of total surrender to one of his star electoral promises, he has decided to resort to the national emergency. The wall with Mexico has become a fetish of Trump’s hard-line policy against illegal immigration and drugs.

He announced it in the summer of 2015, as soon as he launched his career as a pre-candidate for the presidential elections of November 2016 in a speech in which he linked immigration and crime and came to accuse the neighboring country of sending to the US “assassins” and ” rapists. ” There are already parts of the wall built for years. The governments of Bill Clinton and George Bush raised stretches of fence on the Mexican border, but in Trump’s speech, with a negative migratory balance with Mexicans, this promise has become a racist symbol.

By the pulse of the wall, the US passed between the end of December and the end of January the partial closure of the longest government in its history due to lack of funds, which sounds implausible in the richest country in the world.

The reason is that, if the legislators do not agree on the budget when it is exhausted, the Administration should block much of its operations, which this time left 800,000 public employees without receiving their salary. The wall demanded by Trump prevented the agreement and, near Christmas, the country entered into closure until January 25, when the president, very worn out in the polls, yielded and granted a truce of three weeks. This ended Friday, but on Monday night Democrats and Republicans had already reached a compromise.

On Tuesday, the new guidelines of the agreement were first known, Trump acknowledged the defeat in a veiled manner. “I can not say I’m happy,” he told reporters at the White House. At night, however, he redressed the situation, despite not confirming whether he would sign or veto the pact. “The very hardworking Senator Richard Shelby has just explained to me the concept and parameters of the border security agreement.

Taking into account all the aspects and knowing that you will receive a lot of money from other sources, we will have almost 23,000 million dollars for border security. Regardless of the money for the wall, which is being built as we speak, “he wrote on Twitter. The image of transfer, however, was growing as the hours passed, with criticism from the toughest sectors of Trumpism planning about the White House. And Trump took a third way that predicts a-another-long battle.

About The Author