National emergencyTrump declares national emergency

President Donald Trump has declared a national emergency, bypassing Congress to build a wall along the southern U.S. border, and setting up a legal challenge that could help determine the limits of U.S. presidential power.

Trump’s attempt to plow ahead with a wall, his main campaign promise, is likely to please the president’s conservative political base. But it also intensifies accusations Trump is abusing his emergency powers.

Trump says he will also sign a bill to fund the federal government. Congress reached the compromise bill in an attempt to end the partisan deadlock that had led to a recent 35-day government shutdown.

The funding legislation gives Trump only $1.4 billion for a barrier along just 90 kilometers of the border — much less than the $5.7 billion he wanted to begin building 322 kilometers of wall.

But declaring a national emergency gives Trump the authority to move money from elsewhere in the federal budget and use it for a wall. In total, the White House will find roughly $8 billion to build the wall, White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney said Friday.

Legal, political challenges
While Trump’s decision ends the current battle over the budget, it potentially opens the door to much trickier legal and political challenges, which could delay wall construction for years.

“Declaring a national emergency would be a lawless act, a gross abuse of the power of the presidency, and a desperate attempt to distract from the fact that President Trump broke his promise to have Mexico pay for his wall,” Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said in a joint statement.

The president contends there is a crisis along the U.S.-Mexican border. He says only a wall can stop illegal immigration and crime, drugs and violent gangs.

Democrats say a wall would be ineffective against illegal immigration and expensive. Above all, many say there is no emergency at the border, accusing Trump of manufacturing a crisis.

Some of the president’s Republican allies also oppose an emergency declaration. That makes it more likely Congress will try to overturn Trump’s decision, though lawmakers probably lack enough votes to overcome a presidential veto.

A January poll from Quinnipiac University suggested that two-thirds of Americans are opposed to such an emergency declaration.

Bad precedent?
There are concerns Trump’s decision will set a precedent for future U.S. presidents to bypass Congress using national emergency declarations. According to the Constitution, Congress has the “power of the purse” - to tax and spend money for the federal government.

“If this is deemed to be a national emergency that it opens the door for all kinds of things to be deemed national emergencies just given the policy preferences of a president,” says Paul Schiff Berman, a law professor at George Washington University.

“You could say that global warming is a national emergency. You could say that lack of affordable healthcare is a national emergency. You could say that homelessness is a national emergency. And all of them are at least as plausible, if not more plausible than the need to build a security wall,” he says.

Presidents in both major U.S. political parties have increasingly used unilateral executive power to push through their policies. But this appears to be the first time a U.S. president has used Congressionally mandated emergency powers to force through such a politically divisive policy.

This article is published courtesy of the Voice of America (VOA)