Trump wrong in equating border wall to 9/11 attacks

President Donald J. Trump asked Congress for $5.7 billion to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Congress gave him $1.375 billion for about 50 miles of fencing. Trump, known for his petulance, decided get the money he wants by declaring a national emergency on the southern border.

In so doing, the Republican president has created a constitutional crisis that will have to be resolved by the U.S. Supreme Court.

In the words of Atty. Alan Dersho- witz, highly regarded Harvard Law School professor emeritus, “The Constitution requires that all spending bills originate in the House of Representatives. This is a way of circumventing that provision of the Constitution.”

Dershowitz called Trump’s declaration a “mistake” and noted that “emergencies are things that happened suddenly.” The problems with immigration along the southern borders are long-standing.

One of the questions the courts must resolve is simply this: What constitutes a national emergency?

As Trump sees it, the “invasion of drugs and criminals coming into our country” is no different than the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack on America’s homeland that claimed more than 3,000 lives, or the Persian Gulf war, or any of the 50 or so previous emergency declarations under a 1970s-era law.

But there’s one major difference that undercuts Trump’s presidential power claim: None of the past declarations sought to circumvent Congress’ constitutional authority and to spend money lawmakers had expressly refused to authorize.

The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives will take up a measure to block the president from implementing his emergency.

At the same time, the House Judiciary Committee will investigate his claim that he has the authority to redirect dollars previously approved by Congress for other government operations.

According to the New York Times, the resolution could pass the House and the Republican-controlled Senate if it wins the votes of a half-dozen GOP senators who have criticized the declaration.

Adoption of the resolution would guarantee a presidential veto. There aren’t enough votes in the Senate to override the veto, which means Trump could proceed unless challenged in the courts.

LEGAL CHALLENGES BEGIN

On Friday, the American Civil Liberties Union and the nonprofit watchdog group Public Citizen announced they were taking legal action, while various states, including California, have said they will sue.

At the heart of the conflict is the president’s decision to brush aside Congress’ power of the purse strings granted by the Constitution. He aims to divert $3.6 billion from military construction projects, while using more traditional presidential discretion to redirect $2.5 billion from counter narcotics programs and $600 million from a Treasury Department asset forfeiture fund.

Along with the $1.375 billion approved by Congress for the fencing, Trump would have a total of $8 billion for barriers along the border, significantly more than what he had originally sought.

“We’re going to confront the national security crisis on our southern border, and we’re going to do it one way or another,” the president said. “It’s an invasion. We have an invasion of drugs and criminals coming into our country.”

No, it isn’t an invasion. The federal government’s own data show that apprehensions have fallen to 400,000 in the last fiscal year from a high of 1.6 million in the 2000 fiscal year.

In addition, federal agencies involved in drug enforcement say that most illegal drugs come through legal ports of entry and not through the unprotected sections of the U.S.-Mexico border.

President Trump’s use of the word “invasion” serves to denigrate the real national emergencies that have caused so much pain and suffering in this country.

It is noteworthy that his desire to spend $8 billion on border security comes at a time when the compensation fund for victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks is running out of money. Future payments could be cut by 50 percent to 70 percent.

Nearly 40,000 people have applied to the federal fund to deal with illnesses potentially related to being at the World Trade Center site, the Pentagon or Shanksville, Pa. Nearly $5 billion has been awarded from the $7.3 billion fund.

Most of the terrorists who participated in the attacks on America’s mainland came from Saudi Arabia, which enjoys a special relationship with President Trump.

To equate the evil that the Saudis perpetrated in 2001 to what’s going on along the U.S.-Mexico border is to disparage the memory of those who died on Sept. 11.

President Trump must not be permitted to play fast and loose with the concept of national emergency. More importantly, he should not be allowed to circumvent the Constitution.