Trump national emergency – President takes land

After failing to get congressional support for his request to finance the construction of his border wall, Donald Trump found himself faced with a series of unpleasant choices.

Admit the total failure of your key campaign engagement. Or go to the nuclear.

He became nuclear.

By declaring the state of emergency, he will be able to plunder other ministerial budgets to raise $ 8 billion for construction on the southern border.

He will show at his base that he is faithful to his word.

He will argue that he is fighting their fight to stem the flow of illegal immigrants and dangerous drugs into the country.

And it is undeniable that many Central Americans are trying to enter the United States illegally – even though they are fewer in number than in previous years.

And a lot of drugs are also flooding the United States, courtesy of the Mexican lords.

There is a separate debate on the effectiveness of the blunt instrument of a wall.

Some argue that it would be more efficient to use technology and increase the number of border patrol agents.

But as I say, leave that aside. The problem with nuclear power is that there are spin-offs.

This has been presented as a predictable partisan issue.

On one side of the wall, Republicans; on the other side, the Democrats.

But by becoming nuclear, the president made the situation more complicated than that. There are many Republicans – in the Senate and in the House – deeply concerned about what Mr. Trump is doing.

Why? Due to the constitutional arrangement of the United States, Congress controls the stock exchange channels and allocates funds. Not the president.

• Can Trump use emergency powers to build a wall?
• Is there a crisis at the US-Mexico border?

This is an important land grab by the president.

It undermines the powers of Congress and sets a very dangerous precedent.

Let's move forward a few years, and it's a Democrat who's in the White House.

There is a mbad shot somewhere. The president can not impose much tougher gun control measures in Congress, but he now has the master card.

I see your objections and raise you a national emergency.

Bang (bad word). More stringent weapons control measures are introduced.

• All you need to know about the US border in seven tables
• Reaction to Trump's decision to declare state of national emergency

On health care, idem. And what about climate control? Yes that too. Legislators could be totally ignored.

The emergency powers were designed for a real national emergency.

If the border situation is a real national emergency, why did it take the president more than two years to take this step?

You can be sure that Democrats will consider a legal challenge that will culminate in the Supreme Court. And this will delay all construction work.

It is likely that in the coming months, Washington's lawyers will be much busier than the masons of Arizona, Texas, and California.

And the legal challenge will contain a central question: is there a national emergency or political urgency?

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