Trump declares emergency over the wall: What happens now?
Feb 15, 2019, 11:01 AM
(AP)
President Donald Trump is slated to sign a declaration of an emergency over his much-desired, but unfunded border wall. The emergency order will open up access to about $8 billion of federal funding.
The emergency order opens up access to federal funding for Trump to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, “until someone successfully challenges him in court, or better yet, until Congress steps up and exercises its own power, which is what should happen,” former Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna told KIRO Radio’s Dave Ross.
Officials from Washington state have already indicated they will take part in pushing back against the declaration in both the courts and Congress. As McKenna explains, the declaration isn’t the final word. There are a variety of steps that have to be taken, and a range of ways officials can respond.
Arguing for an emergency declaration
Under a statute adopted by Congress in 1976, following the Nixon era, the president is required to cite particular provisions of law which authorize him to declare the national emergency, McKenna notes.
“So he’s supposed to cite which provisions he is relying on, as opposed to just relying on a broad assumption of executive power under the Constitution,” McKenna said. “Then there are checks and balances built in.”
McKenna notes that there are 32 active national emergencies today, which date back to the Carter administration in the ’70s. This includes, for example, emergencies related to Iran. The 9/11 emergency has to be extended each year.
Trump did make a few points when he announced his intentions Friday morning.
“We have a tremendous amounts of drugs flowing into our country, much of it coming from the southern border,” Trump said. “When you listen to politicians, particular certain Democrats, they say it all comes through the port of entries. Wrong. It’s wrong. It’s just a lie. It’s all a lie. They say ‘walls don’t work.’ Walls work 100 percent.”
“A big majority of big drugs, the big drug loads don’t go through ports of entry …. You can’t take human trafficking, women, and girls, you can’t take them through ports of entry,” he said. “You can’t take them tied up in the back seat of a car, or truck, or a van. They open the door and look and they can’t see four women with tape on their mouth, or three women whose hands are tied. They go through areas where you have no wall. Everybody knows that. Nancy knows it. Chuck knows it. They all know. It’s all a big lie. It’s a big con game.”
“We are talking about an invasion of our country with drugs, human traffickers, with all types of criminals and gangs,” Trump said.
Congress
Congress does have some options to counter the national emergency order. But it won’t be simple.
“There is Congressional oversight – Congress has the power to end an emergency – that are designed to reign in the president’s power,” McKenna said. “The problem is, those checks and balances have not actually been used by Congress since the law was adopted in 1976.”
Congress can revoke national emergencies. The Supreme Court, however, ruled in 1983 that such a resolution would require the president’s signature, McKenna said. It’s not likely that Trump would sign a resolution revoking his own order; he could veto it. Therefore, lawmakers would have to overturn his veto with 2/3 vote in each chamber.
There is already talk among lawmakers against Trump’s declaration, including from Washington.
“As the President begins to steal money from military needs to build his wall, Congress must conduct oversight to identify exactly which projects supporting servicemembers and their families the President has chosen to value less than this political stunt,” said Congressman Adam Smith, who represents Washington’s 9th Congressional District.
“….It is clear that there is no national emergency—only a manufactured crisis—and there has been no attempt to explain how the wall has anything to do with supporting U.S. military needs, as the law intends,” he said.
From another angle, and the other side of the aisle, Republican Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers also expressed her opposition to the emergency declaration.
How would Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders use this precedent for a national disaster declaration to force the Green New Deal on the American people? pic.twitter.com/S0ECCS4ba6
— CathyMcMorrisRodgers (@cathymcmorris) February 14, 2019
The courts
A challenge in court is also possible. If federal courts stepped in, an injunction could be placed on wall construction, halting the emergency until the challenge works its way through the legal system. This is similar to court challenges over executive orders.
Such a challenge could come from Washington state, where Attorney General Bob Ferguson has already threatened to take legal action. Ferguson said that he would need to assess how the state could be harmed by the emergency declaration.
“If Washington is harmed, my office will take appropriate steps to block this unlawful action, just as we’ve blocked more than a dozen illegal and unconstitutional policies of this president,” he said Thursday. “….I’m disappointed, but not surprised, to see the President is once again exceeding his authority in violation of the Constitution.”
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