{"id":2640,"date":"2019-02-15T18:42:59","date_gmt":"2019-02-15T18:42:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aptnewsghana.com\/?p=2640"},"modified":"2019-02-15T18:43:02","modified_gmt":"2019-02-15T18:43:02","slug":"mexico-border-wall-trump-confirms-emergency-move","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aptnewsghana.com\/index.php\/2019\/02\/15\/mexico-border-wall-trump-confirms-emergency-move\/","title":{"rendered":"Mexico border wall: Trump confirms emergency move"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

President Trump has confirmed he will use emergency powers to build a wall on the US border with Mexico, saying “walls work”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Building the Mexico border wall was a key pledge of Mr Trump’s campaign, but Democrats have described the emergency as a “gross abuse of power”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He is due to sign the plan along with a spending bill aimed at preventing a repeat of a recent government shutdown<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He announced the plan after Congress refused to pay for a wall in the bill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, senior Democrats said immediately that they would challenge the move in the courts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The declaration will give Mr Trump access to billions of dollars for his project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What did Mr Trump say?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Making the announcement to journalists in the White House Rose Garden, the president said the emergency would allow him to get almost $8bn for the Mexicao border wall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The money is expected to be diverted from military construction projects and efforts to fight the drugs trade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is still considerably short of the estimated $23bn cost of the wall along almost 2,000 miles (3,200km) of border.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We’re going to confront the national security crisis on our southern border,” Mr Trump said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We have an invasion of drugs, invasion of gangs, invasion of people, and it’s unacceptable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Everyone knows that walls work.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But\n Mr Trump accepted that he would be sued for the move, and predicted \nthat the emergency order would lead to legal action which was likely to \nend up in the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dangerous precedent<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The trouble with going nuclear is there is fall-out. This has been presented as a predictably partisan issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On\n one side of the wall, Republicans; on the other side Democrats. But by \ngoing nuclear the president has made it more complicated than that. \nThere are a lot of Republicans – in the Senate and in the House – deeply\n uneasy about what Mr Trump is doing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why? Because the constitutional arrangement of the US is that Congress controls the purse strings and allocates funds. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not the president. This is a major land grab by the president. It undermines their position and sets a very dangerous precedent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How have Democrats responded?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

House\n of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democrat leader \nChuck Schumer responded to Mr Trump’s announcement with a statement \nsaying they would challenge the move in Congress and in the courts \n“using every remedy available”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The president’s unlawful \ndeclaration over a crisis that does not exist does great violence to our\n Constitution and makes America less safe, stealing from urgently needed\n defence funds for the security of our military and our nation,” the \nstatement said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This is plainly a power grab by a disappointed \nPresident, who has gone outside the bounds of the law to try to get what\n he failed to achieve in the constitutional legislative process.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also, within minutes of the announcement, New York State attorney-general Letitia James vowed to mount a legal challenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can Congress stop Trump’s emergency move?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\n National Emergencies Act contains a clause that allows Congress to \nterminate the emergency status if both houses vote for it – and the \npresident does not veto. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With a comfortable majority in the \nHouse, Democrats could pass such a resolution to the Senate. The \nRepublicans control the Senate, but a number of Republican senators have\n been vocal in their unease about the president invoking a national \nemergency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The dissenting Republicans include 2012 presidential \ncontender and new senator for Utah Mitt Romney, Florida senator Marco \nRubio, and the senator from Maine Susan Collins, who said the move was \nof “dubious constitutionality”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The resolution would however still\n require Mr Trump’s signature to pass, allowing him to veto it. A \nsupermajority in both houses of Congress is needed to overturn a \npresidential veto.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is a national emergency?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\n National Emergencies Act is intended for times of national crisis. Mr \nTrump has claimed that there is a migration crisis at the nation’s \nsouthern border – a claim strongly refuted by migration experts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The largest number of illegal migrants settling in the US each year is those who stay in the country after their visas expire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Declaring\n a national emergency would give the president access to special powers \nthat effectively allow him to bypass the usual political process, and he\n would be able to divert money from existing military or disaster relief\n budgets to pay for the wall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Emergency declarations by previous presidents have \nbeen overwhelmingly used for addressing foreign policy crises – \nincluding blocking terrorism-linked entities from accessing funds or \nprohibiting investment in nations associated with human rights abuses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n