Rob McKenna: Why Donald Trump’s Mexican wall plan is ‘impossible’
Apr 7, 2016, 7:58 AM | Updated: 8:37 am
Former AG Rob McKenna considered Donald Trump's plan to force Mexico to pay for his wall. (AP)
(AP)
After months of getting crowds to chant “Mexico” when asked who will pay for his infamous wall, presidential hopeful Donald Trump has finally released his plan for forcing the country south of the border to pay for a wall.
It turns out, however, that the Mexico-will-pay plan isn’t as straight forward as previously stated. In Trump’s recently released plan Mexico would not simply write a check for the wall, rather, Trump would implement new rules and regulations. Those regulations will either haul in taxes that will pay for the wall or serve as a threat to force Mexico to fund it.
Related: McKenna supports Kasich for Republican presidential nomination
This is how it will work: A new rule would ban all money sent by Mexicans in the United States to family down south — that’s the threat part meant to scare Mexican politicians into putting up the money. If the threat doesn’t initially work, then Trump would implement a new rule that would take a percentage of remittances Mexicans in the United States send south — the money earned in the states and sent to Mexico. This percentage would be taken whether the money is earned legally or illegally.
Trump wants to use the Patriot Act to make it happen.
KIRO Radio’s Dave Ross asked former Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna if Trump’s plan “passed the legal smell test.”
“Not even close,” McKenna said.
“Trump says he wants to use the Patriot Act, our key anti-terrorism law, to cut off these money transfers. But the Patriot Act is aimed at stopping transfers that support terrorism,” McKenna said. “Even though people here illegally are not legally earning money, it doesn’t rise to the level of terrorism. Furthermore, to the extent that law is being broken, it’s the employers that are breaking the law first by hiring folks here illegally.”
McKenna, who has recently come out in strong support of Trump’s presidential rival John Kasich, said that if Trump did try to interpret the Patriot Act in such a way that he would likely find himself on the fast track into court.
He also argues that Trump is attempting to place rules on a system that is working illegally.
“Frequently, I don’t think he lets the facts get in the way of his ideas,” McKenna said. “I think he came up with this idea of making Mexico pay for this wall and then he had someone in his campaign go and cobble together this bizarre idea for seizing remittances.”
“The fact is that he is not going to coerce Mexico into paying for this wall,” he said. “It would be politically impossible for Mexican authorities to pay for this wall, even if they wanted to. It just isn’t going to happen.”
