Fake emergency: Protesters say border wall unnecessary

By ED RUNYAN

runyan@vindy.com

WARREN

About 20 people held signs at the gazebo in Courthouse Square on Monday and spoke out against President Donald Trump’s declaration of a national emergency at the southern U.S. border.

“We’re standing up against this fake national emergency that is really a nonemergency, and saying this is a violation of our Constitution, the separation of powers,” said rally organizer Karen Zehr, secretary of the Trumbull County Democratic Party and part of Valley Voices For Change.

The rally was organized after the president declared a state of emergency Friday to secure more money for his long-promised border wall, a move that is expected to draw legal challenges.

Trump announced he will spend about $8 billion on border barriers – combining the $1.4 billion approved by Congress with funding planned for hundreds of military construction projects across the country.

“People all across the country are ... coming out today,” Zehr said. “We are encouraging Congress to act against this fake emergency act with a resolution passed by both houses of Congress. We ask Republicans to join Democrats in this effort. This is a matter that is related to our democracy. It is not a partisan matter.”

Among the signs being held up were ones saying “Our crisis is in the White House” and “Happy President’s Day. We wish we had one.”

U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan of Howland, D-13th, who recently announced he was considering a run at the presidency, said Trump’s action creates a “constitutional issue.”

“When we founded this country, we wanted to make sure the control of the government, for the most part, was with the people. And the closest thing to the people is the [U.S.] House and the Senate. And so what the president is saying is, the hell with the House and the Senate, the hell with what the people wanted and what they elected in the last election and who they put in office, I’m going to do what I want to do.”

Trump said the reason for declaring a national emergency is because the southern U.S. border is “a major entry point for criminals, gang members and illicit narcotics,” and one that threatens “core national security interests.”

Ryan said: “There’s no one in Congress who wants a secure southern border more than I do, more than you do. We understand. We don’t want bad people in this country. We understand we don’t want drugs in this country. But you’ve got to go through the process.

“The president of the United States had the House and Senate controlled by Republicans for two damned years, and he couldn’t get his wall built, and now he’s blaming Nancy Pelosi and everybody else when he couldn’t get it done with his own people.”

Ryan said the reason the president could not get the border wall funded is “there are Southern Republicans on border states that don’t want the federal government coming down and eminent domaining ranchers’ and farmers’ property.”

Ryan said it is a “significant problem” for Trump to take money from defense projects for the wall because “this money just may come from our [Youngstown Air Reserve Station]. This money may just come from Camp Garfield [the former Camp Ravenna], where we were able to get money for training facilities.”

Ryan said the president “has created a spectacle here while we have a national emergency obviously around opiates, around education, around our economy, around seniors being able to have economic security and a good pension and health care when they retire. Those are the emergencies in our country.”

Ryan said the president thinks a border wall is a national emergency, but more important is that “the vast majority of people can’t make it in the country.”

In the recent federal government shutdown, federal employees, “considered secure employment in today’s world, couldn’t miss one paycheck and they were at the food pantry. That’s two-thirds of our country. That’s the national emergency.”