President Donald Trump declared a state of emergency Friday to free up $8 billion in funding to build his long-promised border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Trump is also expected to sign a federal spending bill, which passed the House and Senate on Thursday after three weeks of negotiations, and avoid another government shutdown over border security. The language of the compromise, notably absent the word “wall,” includes just $1.37 billion in funding, far short of the $5.7 billion Trump had demanded from Democrats.
“I’m going to be signing a national emergency, and it’s been signed many times before. It’s been signed by other presidents,” Trump said. “We’re talking about an invasion of our country, with drugs, with human traffickers, with all types of gangs.”
The move is sure to ignite a legal battle that would test the constitutional norms around presidential power. “There would be lawsuits immediately,” Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty and National Security Program, told VICE News in January.
CONTINUE READING HERE.
