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Trump Is Actually Taking Steps To Secure Wall Funding Through A National Emergency

With no end in sight to the government shutdown, President Donald Trump’s administration is reportedly laying the groundwork to declare a national emergency to access funds for his much-debated wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Sources familiar with the preparations told The Washington Post and CNN that Trump is eyeing billions of unspent dollars from the Defense Department’s disaster recovery and military construction coffers to build the wall ― a project for which Democrats have refused to approve funding and that Trump is unwilling to bend on.

Though the president has said for the last week that he’s more than willing to take such a course of action, these are the first reports of him actually moving forward with the plan.

Some of the money Trump wants to use may come from funds slated for disaster relief in Puerto Rico, Texas, California, Florida and other regions devastated by fires, hurricanes and other natural disasters. According to the official who spoke with CNN, the White House has asked the Pentagon to provide it with a list of funds that have been earmarked for relief projects but have not yet been spent ― a sum totaling around $13 billion.

Use of that unspent money for a national emergency is allowed by Title 10 of the U.S. Code.

According to one of the sources who spoke with the Post, Trump has put pressure on the Army Corps of Engineers to give him a timeline for signing on construction contracts and would like to begin work on the wall within the next 45 days.

Though Trump has characterized undocumented immigration through the U.S.-Mexico border as a major security threat to the U.S., the data does not back up his claims.

Democratic leaders have instead called for better infrastructure at ports of entry, better technology for scanning cars for drugs, and additional personnel working at the border to facilitate both trade and immigration.

“Make no mistake: Democrats and the president both want stronger border security,” Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a rebuttal to Trump’s Tuesday address on the border situation. “However, we sharply disagree with the president about the most effective way to do it.”

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Conservative outfit National Review has expressed opposition to this move:

No to an Emergency

No, Trump Can’t Use an Emergency Declaration To Build a Wall

My question is whether the courts will be able to intervene on this.

Fat lady still hasn’t sung.

The wall won't work. Tunnels will be built or people will go around it and it probably isn't even feasible given what the Rio Grand does to the Wall plan. Also, most of the illegals are here on expired visas and wouldn't have been prevented by a wall anyway. https://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/may/22/visa-overstays-biggest-problem-illegal-immigration/

Res Ipsa wrote:Fat lady still hasn’t sung.

I'm curious to see how this gets resolved in the courts. Does the President have "unlimited" power to declare a national emergency? Does the President have an obligation to produce evidence that this is an emergency? What criteria must be met? What precedents have been set?

If we accept the premise that a National Emergency is whatever the President says it is, how far are we from Louis XIV's L'Etat c'est a moi (I am the State)?

Lindsey Graham has urged Trump to go into emergency mode and order the Trump Hispanic/Terrorist/Bad Hombres Repulsion Fence to be built.

Are you worried about a cost of 10 cents on every $100 of federal government spending or the fact that the wall might reduce illegal immigration from Latin America?

ajax18 wrote:Are you worried about a cost of 10 cents on every $100 of federal government spending or the fact that the wall might reduce illegal immigration from Latin America?

There is no reason to believe a wall will reduce anything. It is stupid and it takes truly stupid people like you and subs to believe it. Walls/barriers already exist and they do nothing to reduce illegal immigration. Immigrants walk around them, they dig under them, they climb over them, or they cut right through them. This we know for a fact. There is absolutely no logical reason to believe a wall would do anything. This isn't about realistically trying to stop immigrants, it is about Trump getting his special trophy for his little band of racist morons like you.

Kevin Graham wrote:

ajax18 wrote:Are you worried about a cost of 10 cents on every $100 of federal government spending or the fact that the wall might reduce illegal immigration from Latin America?

There is no reason to believe a wall will reduce anything. It is stupid and it takes truly stupid people like you and subs to believe it. Walls/barriers already exist and they do nothing to reduce illegal immigration. Immigrants walk around them, they dig under them, they climb over them, or they cut right through them. This we know for a fact. There is absolutely no logical reason to believe a wall would do anything. This isn't about realistically trying to stop immigrants, it is about Trump getting his special trophy for his little band of racist morons like you.

Yes, beat the racist drum to death because you can't rely on any facts about reality (note, that to date the amount of racism shared by you and ajax is about the same, and both of you are even in denial about it).

But let us examine whatever libtard myth you are subscribing to today....

So, if walls don't reduce/accomplish anything, then neither do fences, and neither do gates...physical barriers are wholly ineffective according to you.
According to you, "the border" is only effective inasmuch as it is a "concept", an intangible boundary that exists only as a courtesy among the people on either side of it.
Ergo, remove all walls, fences, and gates to save money and maintain a more virtuous morality.
Ergo, the idea of "citizenship", as it perpetuates the idea of a physical barrier, must be dissolved as a qualification for any goods/services provided by the government.
Ergo, you currently can not (and will not) provide one reasonable argument for our nation to have a border in any form.
Ergo, your posts are stupid.

If you think that a border wall on the Southern border will be an ineffective, inefficient means to deterring unauthorized immigration, I guess you have to take a sledgehammer to the walls in your house to be intellectually consistent - a brain genius.

subgenius wrote:So, if walls don't reduce/accomplish anything, then neither do fences, and neither do gates...physical barriers are wholly ineffective according to you.

Never said this. What I've said is that physical barriers by themselves are worthless. You keep pointing to the dumbest of parallels in Israel, ignoring the fact that Israel's wall is constantly monitored and patrolled not only by actual humans, but by technological security systems as well. Where we have border walls makes sense in some areas because they're near areas that are patrolled. However out in the middle of nowhere, a hundred miles away from the nearest CBP, they make no sense at all.

subgenius wrote:According to you, "the border" is only effective inasmuch as it is a "concept", an intangible boundary that exists only as a courtesy among the people on either side of it.

No one said this either. You're just making crap up because you have to feel like you're winning at something. Enter straw man city.

It is good to have something at a border to let people know they're about the enter another damned country. A fence makes perfect sense.

Ergo, remove all walls, fences, and gates to save money and maintain a more virtuous morality.

Again, the stupid straw man makes you look dumber than you probably are. Well...maybe not.

Notice you've never addressed the fact that walls are breached, climbed over, walked around, and dug under. Billion on a wall when it can be defeated by a $20 shovel and a $30 ladder. Yes, this is how Trump ran his businesses too, which explains why they all shut down.