{"id":22918,"date":"2019-02-18T12:18:13","date_gmt":"2019-02-18T17:18:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/?p=22918"},"modified":"2019-02-18T15:43:13","modified_gmt":"2019-02-18T20:43:13","slug":"trump-declares-national-emergency-for-border-wall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/tartan-news\/2019\/02\/18\/trump-declares-national-emergency-for-border-wall\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump Declares National Emergency for Border Wall Funds"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0President Donald Trump declared a national emergency at the Rose Garden this past Friday, Feb. 15. This is in an effort to get more funding for his border wall, though members of Congress on both sides question if the declaration is constitutional.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0A spending package was passed by Congress the day prior to the announcement, which included $1.375 billion authorized to provide fencing for the border. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0This declaration enables Trump to divert $3.6 billion budgeted for military construction projects to the border wall. He will also tap $2.5 billion from counternarcotics programs and $600 million from a Treasury Department asset forfeiture fund for the wall. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0In total, Trump now has $8 billion to advance construction of new barriers and repairs on existing barriers along the Mexico border. This amount is larger than the $5.7 billion proposed before the government shut down last month.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0In the announcement from Friday morning, Trump commented on his reasoning behind it:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0\u201cWe don’t control our own border,\u201d he stated. \u201cWe\u2019re going to confront the national security crisis on our southern border and we\u2019re going to do it one way or the other. It\u2019s an invasion. We have an invasion of drugs and criminals coming into our country.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0“I didn’t need to do this,” he added. “But I’d rather do it much faster.”<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Trump is facing opposition from legislative voices, questioning the constitutionality of the declaration and the practice of taking funds from the military construction projects budget.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), an Iraq War veteran, stated in a tweet: \u201cThat money is to build facilities to recruit, train and retain the world\u2019s best military. A fake national emergency takes money from that mission.\u201d<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"\u00a0 \u00a0A joint statement was released by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi of California and Senator Chuck Schumer of New York. It stated:<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0\u201cThis is plainly a power grab by a disappointed president, who has gone outside the bounds of the law to try to get what he failed to achieve in the constitutional legislative process.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0The statement continued:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0\u201cThe President\u2019s actions clearly violate the Congress\u2019s exclusive power of the purse, which our Founders enshrined in the Constitution. The Congress will defend our constitutional authorities in the Congress, in the Courts, and in the public, using every remedy available.\u201d<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff answered reporters questions on Friday morning, stating that the White House will not use any money designated as disaster assistance for Puerto Rico or Texas for the wall.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0He spoke against the motion that Trump\u2019s actions would create a precedent for others to use in the future.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0\u201cIt actually creates zero precedent,\u201d Mulvaney said. \u201cThis is authority given to the president in law already. It\u2019s not as if he didn\u2019t get what he wanted and waved a magic wand to get some money.\u201d<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) defended Trump\u2019s plan during an appearance on Fox News.<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0\u201cI certainly support the president,\u201d Meadows said. \u201cI wish Congress could have done more to help him. [Trump\u2019s actions were necessary] because Congress has failed this president and the American people. The law of the land allows this president to do what he is about to do.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0Trump later acknowledged the potential legal scrutiny he could face from members of Congress.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0\u201cHopefully we\u2019ll get a fair shake [in the Supreme Court],\u201d said Trump. \u201cWe\u2019re declaring it for virtual invasion purposes. Sadly, we\u2019ll be sued, and sadly, we\u2019ll go through a process.\u201d<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"Henry Wolski<\/strong>
\n<\/span>Executive Editor<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0President Donald Trump declared a national emergency at the Rose Garden this past Friday, Feb. 15. This is in an effort to get more funding for his border wall, though members of Congress on both sides question if the declaration is constitutional. \u00a0 \u00a0A spending package was passed by Congress the day prior to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10416,"featured_media":22920,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,2150],"tags":[2911,1604,2000,3003,1382,1388,333,3002],"class_list":["post-22918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tartan-news","category-world","tag-border-wall","tag-donald-trump","tag-henry-wolski","tag-national-emergency","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-president","tag-president-trump"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5s3vR-5XE","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/trump-2704264_1920.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10416"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22918"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22918\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22972,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22918\/revisions\/22972"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}