Trump to sign spending bill and declare national emergency

UPDATED AT 1:57 P.M. FEB. 15:

Earlier today, President Donald Trump declared a national emergency on the U.S. southern border with the purpose of freeing up more funds for the border wall.

“We don’t control our own border,” Trump said during a televised announcement in the White House Rose Garden. “We are going to confront the national security crisis on our southern border and we are going to do it one way or the other. … We have tremendous amounts of drugs flowing into our country, much of it coming from the southern border.”

The White House released a statement today saying Trump “is using his legal authority to take Executive action to secure additional resources, just as he promised.  In part, he is declaring a national emergency that makes available additional troops and funding for military construction.”

Trump’s administration has identified up to $8.1 billion for border wall funding that will be available thanks to the national emergency declaration, the statement reads.

The Rio Grande Valley, which accounts for 40 percent of all border apprehensions, was the sector with the most known deaths of illegal border crossers in FY 2018, according to the statement.

Original story:

President Donald Trump will sign a spending bill but is preparing to declare a national emergency, the White House Twitter account said Thursday afternoon.

The spending bill gives Trump only $1.375 billion out of the $5.7 billion originally requested for physical barriers at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Although another government shutdown will be averted with the signing of the bill, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell commented on the Senate floor that Trump was also declaring a national emergency, which has the purpose of helping Trump secure more funding for the border wall.

“I’ve just had the opportunity to speak with President Trump and … he’s prepared to sign the bill,” McConnell said. “He will also be issuing a national emergency declaration at the same time, and I’ve indicated to him I’m going to support the national emergency declaration.”

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders confirmed the speculations in a statement saying Trump will sign a bill “to ensure we stop the national security and humanitarian crisis at the border.”

“President Trump will sign the government funding bill, and as he has stated before, he will also take other executive action–including a national emergency–to ensure we stop the national security and humanitarian crisis at the border,” Sanders said.

The White House then posted on its Twitter account:

The President is once again delivering on his promise to build the wall, protect the border, and secure our great country.

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) February 14, 2019

Declaring a national emergency enables the president to govern more effectively in a time of crisis, according to the CRS Report for Congress on National Emergency Powers updated on August 30, 2007.

“Under the powers delegated by such statutes, the President may seize property, organize and control the means of production, seize commodities, assign military forces abroad, institute martial law, seize and control all transportation and communication, regulate the operation of private enterprise, restrict travel, and, in a variety of ways, control the lives of United States citizens,” the report states.

Republican Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers posted a statement on Twitter expressing her opposition to the president’s plan.

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

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) tweeted that Trump’s actions were a “lawless act.”

“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 @realDonaldTrump broke his core promise to have Mexico pay for his wall,” Pelosi said in her statement.