[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 34 (Monday, February 25, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1410-S1413]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
DECLARATION OF NATIONAL EMERGENCY
Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, before Congress went out of session 2
weeks ago, President Trump announced that he was declaring a national
emergency to redirect funds to the construction of a border wall. It
was a lawless act, a gross abuse of power, and an attempt by the
President to distract from the fact that he broke his core promise to
have Mexico pay for the wall.
Let me give a few reasons why the President's emergency is so wrong.
First, there is no evidence of an emergency at the border. Illegal
border crossings have been declining for 20 years. Just this morning, a
group of 58 former senior national security figures, including Chuck
Hagel and Madeleine Albright, released a statement saying: ``Under no
plausible assessment of the evidence is there a national emergency
today that entitles the president to tap into funds appropriated for
other purposes to build a wall at the southern border.''
I ask unanimous consent that the full statement be printed in the
Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Joint Declaration of Former United States Government Officials
We, the undersigned, declare as follows:
1. We are former officials in the U.S. government who have
worked on national security and homeland security issues from
the White House as well as agencies across the Executive
Branch. We have served in senior leadership roles in
administrations of both major political parties, and
collectively we have devoted a great many decades to
protecting the security interests of the United States. We
have held the highest security clearances, and we have
participated in the highest levels of policy deliberations on
a broad range of issues. These include: immigration, border
security, counterterrorism, military operations, and our
nation's relationship with other countries, including those
south of our border.
a. Madeleine K. Albright served as Secretary of State from
1997 to 2001. A refugee and naturalized American citizen, she
served as U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations
from 1993 to 1997. She has also been a member of the Central
Intelligence Agency External Advisory Board since 2009 and of
the Defense Policy Board since 2011, in which capacities she
has received assessments of threats facing the United States.
b. Jeremy B. Bash served as Chief of Staff of the U.S.
Department of Defense from 2011 to 2013, and as Chief of
Staff of the Central Intelligence Agency from 2009 to 2011.
c. John B. Bellinger III served as the Legal Adviser to the
U.S. Department of State from 2005 to 2009. He previously
served as Senior Associate Counsel to the President and Legal
Adviser to the National Security Council from 2001 to 2005.
d. Daniel Benjamin served as Ambassador-at-Large for
Counterterrorism at the U.S. Department of State from 2009 to
2012.
e. Antony Blinken served as Deputy Secretary of State from
2015 to 2017. He previously served as Deputy National
Security Advisor to the President from 2013 to 2015.
f. John 0. Brennan served as Director of the Central
Intelligence Agency from 2013 to 2017. He previously served
as Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and
Counterterrorism and Assistant to the President from 2009 to
2013.
g. R. Nicholas Burns served as Under Secretary of State for
Political Affairs from 2005 to 2008. He previously served as
U.S. Ambassador to NATO and as U.S. Ambassador to Greece.
h. William J. Burns served as Deputy Secretary of State
from 2011 to 2014. He previously served as Under Secretary of
State for Political Affairs from 2008 to 2011, as U.S.
Ambassador to Russia from 2005 to 2008, as Assistant
Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs from 2001 to
2005, and as U.S. Ambassador to Jordan from 1998 to 2001.
[[Page S1411]]
i. Johnnie Carson served as Assistant Secretary of State
for African Affairs from 2009 to 2013. He previously served
as the U.S. Ambassador to Kenya from 1999 to 2003, to
Zimbabwe from 1995 to 1997, and to Uganda from 1991 to 1994.
j. James Clapper served as U.S. Director of National
Intelligence from 2010 to 2017.
k. David S. Cohen served as Under Secretary of the Treasury
for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence from 2011 to 2015
and as Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency
from 2015 to 2017.
l. Eliot A. Cohen served as Counselor of the U.S.
Department of State from 2007 to 2009.
m. Ryan Crocker served as U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan
from 2011 to 2012, as U.S. Ambassador to Iraq from 2007 to
2009, as U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan from 2004 to 2007, as
U.S. Ambassador to Syria from 1998 to 2001, as U.S.
Ambassador to Kuwait from 1994 to 1997, and U.S. Ambassador
to Lebanon from 1990 to 1993.
n. Thomas Donilon served as National Security Advisor to
the President from 2010 to 2013.
o. Jen Easterly served as Special Assistant to the
President and Senior Director for Counterterrorism from 2013
to 2016.
p. Nancy Ely-Raphel served as Senior Adviser to the
Secretary of State and Director of the Office to Monitor and
Combat Trafficking in Persons from 2001 to 2003. She
previously served as the U.S. Ambassador to Slovenia from
1998 to 2001.
q. Daniel P. Erikson served as Special Advisor for Western
Hemisphere Affairs to the Vice President from 2015 to 2017,
and as Senior Advisor for Western Hemisphere Affairs at the
U.S. Department of State from 2010 to 2015.
r. John D. Feeley served as U.S. Ambassador to Panama from
2015 to 2018. He served as Principal Deputy Assistant
Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs at the U.S.
Department of State from 2012 to 2015.
s. Daniel F. Feldman served as Special Representative for
Afghanistan and Pakistan at the U.S. Department of State from
2014 to 2015.
t. Jonathan Finer served as Chief of Staff to the Secretary
of State from 2015 to 2017, and Director of the Policy
Planning Staff at the U.S. Department of State from 2016 to
2017.
u. Jendayi Frazer served as Assistant Secretary of State
for African Affairs from 2005 to 2009. She served as U.S.
Ambassador to South Africa from 2004 to 2005.
v. Suzy George served as Executive Secretary and Chief of
Staff of the National Security Council from 2014 to 2017.
w. Phil Gordon served as Special Assistant to the President
and White House Coordinator for the Middle East, North Africa
and the Gulf from 2013 to 2015, and Assistant Secretary of
State for European and Eurasian Affairs from 2009 to 2013.
x. Chuck Hagel served as Secretary of Defense from 2013 to
2015, and previously served as Co-Chair of the President's
Intelligence Advisory Board. From 1997 to 2009, he served as
U.S. Senator for Nebraska, and as a senior member of the
Senate Foreign Relations and Intelligence Committees.
y. Avril D. Haines served as Deputy National Security
Advisor to the President from 2015 to 2017. From 2013 to
2015, she served as Deputy Director of the Central
Intelligence Agency.
z. Luke Hartig served as Senior Director for
Counterterrorism at the National Security Council from 2014
to 2016.
aa. Heather A. Higginbottom served as Deputy Secretary of
State for Management and Resources from 2013 to 2017.
bb. Roberta Jacobson served as U.S. Ambassador to Mexico
from 2016 to 2018. She previously served as Assistant
Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs from 2011
to 2016.
cc. Gil Kerlikowske served as Commissioner of Customs and
Border Protection from2014 to 2017. He previously served as
Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy from
2009 to 2014.
dd. John F. Kerry served as Secretary of State from 2013 to
2017.
ee. Prem Kumar served as Senior Director for the Middle
East and North Africa at the National Security Council from
2013 to 2015.
ff. John E. McLaughlin served as Deputy Director of the
Central Intelligence Agency from 2000 to 2004 and as Acting
Director in 2004. His duties included briefing President-
elect Bill Clinton and President George W. Bush.
gg. Lisa O. Monaco served as Assistant to the President for
Homeland Security and Counterterrorism and Deputy National
Security Advisor from 2013 to 2017. Previously, she served as
Assistant Attorney General for National Security from 2011 to
2013.
hh. Janet Napolitano served as Secretary of Homeland
Security from 2009 to 2013. She served as the Governor of
Arizona from 2003 to 2009.
ii. James D. Nealon served as Assistant Secretary for
International Engagement at the U.S. Department of Homeland
Security from 2017 to 2018. He served as U.S. Ambassador to
Honduras from 2014 to 2017.
jj. James C. O'Brien served as Special Presidential Envoy
for Hostage Affairs from 2015 to 2017. He served in the U.S.
Department of State from 1989 to 2001, including as Principal
Deputy Director of Policy Planning and as Special
Presidential Envoy for the Balkans.
kk. Matthew G. Olsen served as Director of the National
Counterterrorism Center from 2011 to 2014.
11. Leon E. Panetta served as Secretary of Defense from
2011 to 2013. From 2009 to 2011, he served as Director of the
Central Intelligence Agency.
mm. Anne W. Patterson served as Assistant Secretary of
State for Near Eastern Affairs from 2013 to 2017. Previously,
she served as the U.S. Ambassador to Egypt from 2011 to 2013,
to Pakistan from 2007 to 2010, to Colombia from 2000 to 2003,
and to El Salvador from 1997 to 2000.
nn. Thomas R. Pickering served as Under Secretary of State
for Political Affairs from 1997 to 2000. He served as U.S.
Permanent Representative to the United Nations from 1989 to
1992.
oo. Amy Pope served as Deputy Homeland Security Advisor and
Deputy Assistant to the President from 2015 to 2017.
pp. Samantha J. Power served as U.S. Permanent
Representative to the United Nations from 2013 to 2017. From
2009 to 2013, she served as Senior Director for Multilateral
and Human Rights at the National Security Council.
qq. Jeffrey Prescott served as Deputy National Security
Advisor to the Vice President from 2013 to 2015, and as
Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for
Iran, Iraq, Syria and the Gulf States from 2015 to 2017.
rr. Nicholas Rasmussen served as Director of the National
Counterterrorism Center from 2014 to 2017.
ss. Alan Charles Raul served as Vice Chairman of the
Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board from 2006 to
2008. He previously served as General Counsel of the U.S.
Department of Agriculture from 1989 to 1993, General Counsel
of the Office of Management and Budget in the Executive
Office of the President from 1988 to 1989, and Associate
Counsel to the President from 1986 to 1989.
tt. Dan Restrepo served as Special Assistant to the
President and Senior Director for Western Hemisphere Affairs
at the National Security Council from 2009 to 2012.
uu. Susan E. Rice served as U.S. Permanent Representative
to the United Nations from 2009 to 2013 and as National
Security Advisor to the President from 2013 to 2017.
vv. Anne C. Richard served as Assistant Secretary of State
for Population, Refugees, and Migration from 2012 to 2017.
ww. Eric P. Schwartz served as Assistant Secretary of State
for Population, Refugees, and Migration from 2009 to 2011.
From 1993 to 2001, he was responsible for refugee and
humanitarian issues at the National Security Council,
ultimately serving as Special Assistant to the President for
National Security Affairs and Senior Director for
Multilateral and Humanitarian Affairs.
xx. Andrew J. Shapiro served as Assistant Secretary of
State for Political-Military Affairs from 2009 to 2013.
yy. Wendy R. Sherman served as Under Secretary of State for
Political Affairs from 2011 to 2015.
zz. Vikram Singh served as Deputy Special Representative
for Afghanistan and Pakistan from 2010 to 2011 and as Deputy
Assistant Secretary of Defense for Southeast Asia from 2012
to 2014.
aaa. Dana Shell Smith served as U.S. Ambassador to Qatar
from 2014 to 2017. Previously, she served as Principal Deputy
Assistant Secretary of Public Affairs.
bbb. Jeffrey H. Smith served as General Counsel of the
Central Intelligence Agency from 1995 to 1996. He previously
served as General Counsel of the Senate Armed Services
Committee.
ccc. Jake Sullivan served as National Security Advisor to
the Vice President from 2013 to 2014. He previously served as
Director of Policy Planning at the U.S. Department of State
from 2011 to 2013.
ddd. Strobe Talbott served as Deputy Secretary of State
from 1994 to 2001.
eee. Linda Thomas-Greenfield served as Assistant Secretary
for the Bureau of African Affairs from 2013 to 2017. She
previously served as U.S. Ambassador to Liberia and Deputy
Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Population, Refugees,
and Migration from 2004 to 2006.
fff. Arturo A. Valenzuela served as Assistant Secretary of
State for Western Hemisphere Affairs from 2009 to 2011. He
previously served as Special Assistant to the President and
Senior Director for Inter-American Affairs at the National
Security Council from 1999 to 2000, and as Deputy Assistant
Secretary of State for Mexican Affairs from 1994 to 1996.
2. On February 15, 2019, the President declared a
``national emergency'' for the purpose of diverting
appropriated funds from previously designated uses to build a
wall along the southern border. We are aware of no emergency
that remotely justifies such a step. The President's actions
are at odds with the overwhelming evidence in the public
record, including the administration's own data and
estimates. We have lived and worked through national
emergencies, and we support the President's power to mobilize
the Executive Branch to respond quickly in genuine national
emergencies. But under no plausible assessment of the
evidence is there a national emergency today that entitles
the President to tap into funds appropriated for other
purposes to build a wall at the southern border. To our
knowledge, the President's assertion of a national emergency
here is unprecedented, in that he seeks to address a
situation: (1) that has been enduring, rather than one that
has arisen suddenly; (2) that in fact has improved over time
rather than deteriorated; (3) by reprogramming billions of
dollars in funds in the face of clear congressional intent to
the contrary; and (4)
[[Page S1412]]
with assertions that are rebutted not just by the public
record, but by his agencies' own official data, documents,
and statements.
3. Illegal border crossings are near forty-year lows. At
the outset, there is no evidence of a sudden or emergency
increase in the number of people seeking to cross the
southern border. According to the administration's own data,
the numbers of apprehensions and undetected illegal border
crossings at the southern border are near forty-year lows.
Although there was a modest increase in apprehensions in
2018, that figure is in keeping with the number of
apprehensions only two years earlier, and the overall trend
indicates a dramatic decline over the last fifteen years in
particular. The administration also estimates that
``undetected unlawful entries'' at the southern border ``fell
from approximately 851,000 to nearly 62,000'' between fiscal
years 2006 to 2016, the most recent years for which data are
available. The United States currently hosts what is
estimated to be the smallest number of undocumented
immigrants since 2004. And in fact, in recent years, the
majority of currently undocumented immigrants entered the
United States legally, but overstayed their visas, a problem
that will not be addressed by the declaration of an emergency
along the southern border.
4. There is no documented terrorist or national security
emergency at the southern border. There is no reason to
believe that there is a terrorist or national security
emergency at the southern border that could justify the
President's proclamation.
a. This administration's own most recent Country Report on
Terrorism, released only five months ago, found that ``there
was no credible evidence indicating that international
terrorist groups have established bases in Mexico, worked
with Mexican drug cartels, or sent operatives via Mexico into
the United States.'' Since 1975, there has been only one
reported incident in which immigrants who had crossed the
southern border illegally attempted to commit a terrorist
act. That incident occurred more than twelve years ago, and
involved three brothers from Macedonia who had been brought
into the United States as children more than twenty years
earlier.
b. Although the White House has claimed, as an argument
favoring a wall at the southern border, that almost 4,000
known or suspected terrorists were intercepted at the
southern border in a single year, this assertion has since
been widely and consistently repudiated, including by this
administration's own Department of Homeland Security. The
overwhelming majority of individuals on terrorism watchlists
who were intercepted by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol were
attempting to travel to the United States by air; of the
individuals on the terrorist watchlist who were encountered
while entering the United States during fiscal year 2017,
only 13 percent traveled by land. And for those who have
attempted to enter by land, only a small fraction do so at
the southern border. Between October 2017 and March 2018,
forty-one foreign immigrants on the terrorist watchlist were
intercepted at the northern border. Only six such immigrants
were intercepted at the southern border.
5. There is no emergency related to violent crime at the
southern border. Nor can the administration justify its
actions on the grounds that the incidence of violent crime on
the southern border constitutes a national emergency. Factual
evidence consistently shows that unauthorized immigrants have
no special proclivity to engage in criminal or violent
behavior. According to a Cato Institute analysis of
criminological data, undocumented immigrants are 44 percent
less likely to be incarcerated nationwide than are native-
born citizens. And in Texas, undocumented immigrants were
found to have a first-time conviction rate 32 percent below
that of native-born Americans; the conviction rates of
unauthorized immigrants for violent crimes such as homicide
and sex offenses were also below those of native-born
Americans. Meanwhile, overall rates of violent crime in the
United States have declined significantly over the past 25
years, falling 49 percent from 1993 to 2017. And violent
crime rates in the country's 30 largest cities have decreased
on average by 2.7 percent in 2018 alone, further undermining
any suggestion that recent crime trends currently warrant the
declaration of a national emergency.
6. There is no human or drug trafficking emergency that can
be addressed by a wall at the southern border. The
administration has claimed that the presence of human and
drug trafficking at the border justifies its emergency
declaration. But there is no evidence of any such sudden
crisis at the southern border that necessitates a
reprogramming of appropriations to build a border wall.
a. The overwhelming majority of opioids that enter the
United States across a land border are carried through legal
ports of entry in personal or commercial vehicles, not
smuggled through unauthorized border crossings. A border wall
would not stop these drugs from entering the United States.
Nor would a wall stop drugs from entering via other routes,
including smuggling tunnels, which circumvent such physical
barriers as fences and walls, and international mail (which
is how high-purity fentanyl, for example, is usually shipped
from China directly to the United States).
b. Likewise, illegal crossings at the southern border are
not the principal source of human trafficking victims. About
two-thirds of human trafficking victims served by nonprofit
organizations that receive funding from the relevant
Department of Justice office are U.S. citizens, and even
among non-citizens, most trafficking victims usually arrive
in the country on valid visas. None of these instances of
trafficking could be addressed by a border wall. And the
three states with the highest per capita trafficking
reporting rates are not even located along the southern
border.
7. This proclamation will only exacerbate the humanitarian
concerns that do exist at the southern border. There are real
humanitarian concerns at the border, but they largely result
from the current administration's own deliberate policies
towards migrants. For example, the administration has used a
``metering'' policy to turn away families fleeing extreme
violence and persecution in their home countries, forcing
them to wait indefinitely at the border to present their
asylum cases, and has adopted a number of other punitive
steps to restrict those seeking asylum at the southern
border. These actions have forced asylum-seekers to live on
the streets or in makeshift shelters and tent cities with
abysmal living conditions, and limited access to basic
sanitation has caused outbreaks of disease and death. This
state of affairs is a consequence of choices this
administration has made, and erecting a wall will do nothing
to ease the suffering of these people.
8. Redirecting funds for the claimed ``national emergency''
will undermine U.S. national security and foreign policy
interests. In the face of a nonexistent threat, redirecting
funds for the construction of a wall along the southern
border will undermine national security by needlessly pulling
resources from Department of Defense programs that are
responsible for keeping our troops and our country safe and
running effectively.
a. Repurposing funds from the defense construction budget
will drain money from critical defense infrastructure
projects, possibly including improvement of military
hospitals, construction of roads, and renovation of on-base
housing. And the proclamation will likely continue to divert
those armed forces already deployed at the southern border
from their usual training activities or missions, affecting
troop readiness.
b. In addition, the administration's unilateral,
provocative actions are heightening tensions with our
neighbors to the south, at a moment when we need their help
to address a range of Western Hemisphere concerns. These
actions are placing friendly governments to the south under
impossible pressures and driving partners away. They have
especially strained our diplomatic relationship with Mexico,
a relationship that is vital to regional efforts ranging from
critical intelligence and law enforcement partnerships to
cooperative efforts to address the growing tensions with
Venezuela. Additionally, the proclamation could well lead to
the degradation of the natural environment in a manner that
could only contribute to long-term socioeconomic and security
challenges.
c. Finally, by declaring a national emergency for domestic
political reasons with no compelling reason or justification
from his senior intelligence and law enforcement officials,
the President has further eroded his credibility with foreign
leaders, both friend and foe. Should a genuine foreign crisis
erupt, this lack of credibility will materially weaken this
administration's ability to marshal allies to support the
United States, and will embolden adversaries to oppose us.
9. The situation at the border does not require the use of
the armed forces, and a wall is unnecessary to support the
use of the armed forces. We understand that the
administration is also claiming that the situation at the
southern border ``requires use of the armed forces,'' and
that a wall is ``necessary to support such use'' of the armed
forces. These claims are implausible.
a. Historically, our country has deployed National Guard
troops at the border solely to assist the Border Patrol when
there was an extremely high number of apprehensions, together
with a particularly low number of Border Patrol agents. But
currently, even with retention and recruitment challenges,
the Border Patrol is at historically high staffing and
funding levels, and apprehensions--measured in both absolute
and per-agent terms--are near historic lows.
b. Furthermore, the composition of southern border
crossings has shifted such that families and unaccompanied
minors now account for the majority of immigrants seeking
entry at the southern border; these individuals do not
present a threat that would need to be countered with
military force.
c. Just last month, when asked what the military is doing
at the border that couldn't be done by the Department of
Homeland Security if it had the funding for it, a top-level
defense official responded, ``[n]one of the capabilities that
we are providing [at the southern border] are combat
capabilities. It's not a war zone along the border.''
Finally, it is implausible that hundreds of miles of wall
across the southern border are somehow necessary to support
the use of armed forces. We are aware of no military- or
security-related rationale that could remotely justify such
an endeavor.
10. There is no basis for circumventing the appropriations
process with a declaration of a national emergency at the
southern border. We do not deny that our nation faces real
immigration and national security challenges. But as the
foregoing demonstrates, these challenges demand a thoughtful,
evidence-based strategy, not a manufactured crisis that rests
on falsehoods and fearmongering. In a briefing before the
Senate Intelligence Committee on
[[Page S1413]]
January 29, 2019, less than one month before the Presidential
Proclamation, the Directors of the CIA, DNI, FBI, and NSA
testified about numerous serious current threats to U.S.
national security, but none of the officials identified a
security crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border. In a briefing
before the House Armed Services Committee the next day,
Pentagon officials acknowledged that the 2018 National
Defense Strategy does not identify the southern border as a
security threat. Leading legislators with access to
classified information and the President's own statements
have strongly suggested, if not confirmed, that there is no
evidence supporting the administration's claims of an
emergency. And it is reported that the President made the
decision to circumvent the appropriations process and
reprogram money without the Acting Secretary of Defense
having even started to consider where the funds might come
from, suggesting an absence of consultation and internal
deliberations that in our experience are necessary and
expected before taking a decision of this magnitude.
11. For all of the foregoing reasons, in our professional
opinion, there is no factual basis for the declaration of a
national emergency for the purpose of circumventing the
appropriations process and reprogramming billions of dollars
in funding to construct a wall at the southern border, as
directed by the Presidential Proclamation of February 15,
2019.
Respectfully submitted,
Signed/*
Madeleine K. Albright, Jeremy B. Bash, John B. Bellinger
III, Daniel Benjamin, Antony Blinken, John O. Brennan, R.
Nicholas Burns, William J. Burns, Johnnie Carson, James
Clapper.
David S. Cohen, Eliot A. Cohen, Ryan Crocker, Thomas
Donilon, Jen Easterly, Nancy Ely-Raphel, Daniel P. Erikson,
John D. Feeley, Daniel F. Feldman, Jonathan Finer.
Jendayi Frazer, Suzy George, Phil Gordon, Chuck Hagel,
Avril D. Haines, Luke Hartig, Heather A. Higginbottom,
Roberta Jacobson, Gil Kerlikowske, John F. Kerry.
Prem Kumar, John E. McLaughlin, Lisa O. Monaco, Janet
Napolitano, James D. Nealon, James C. O'Brien, Matthew G.
Olsen, Leon E. Panetta, Anne W. Patterson, Thomas R.
Pickering.
Amy Pope, Samantha J. Power, Jeffrey Prescott, Nicholas
Rasmussen, Alan Charles Raul, Dan Restrepo, Susan E. Rice,
Anne C. Richard, Eric P. Schwartz, Andrew J. Shapiro.
Wendy R. Sherman, Vikram Singh, Dana Shell Smith, Jeffrey
H. Smith, Jake Sullivan, Strobe Talbott, Linda Thomas-
Greenfield, Arturo A. Valenzuela.
Mr. SCHUMER. Even the President himself, who is now declaring an
emergency, halfway through his meandering speech proclaiming the
emergency, said: ``I didn't need to do this . . . but I'd rather do it
[build the wall] much faster.''
If there was ever a statement that says this is not an emergency,
that is it. He said he didn't need to do this. So, my colleagues, my
dear colleagues, if we are going to let the President, any President,
on a whim, declare emergencies just because he or she can't get their
way in the Congress, we have fundamentally changed the building blocks,
these strong, proud building blocks that the Founding Fathers put into
place.
Second, the President's emergency declaration could cannibalize
funding from worthy projects all over the country. We don't even know
yet which projects he is planning to take the funds from. I ask my
colleagues to think about that--what important initiatives in your
State are on the Trump chopping block? What military project will the
President cancel to fund the border wall Congress rejected?
Third, and I made this point a little bit at the beginning, but it
bears repeating. Far and away most importantly, the President's
emergency declaration is a fundamental distortion of our constitutional
order. The Constitution gives Congress the power of the purse, not the
President, and congressional intent on the border wall is clear. The
President's wall has been before Congress several times, and not once
has it garnered enough votes to merit consideration. In some cases it
was with Republican votes. The President said that it was just the
Democrats who blocked it. That is not true. There were Republican votes
when the wall was on the floor for voting as well.
As the great New Yorker, Justice Jackson from Jamestown, NY,
observed, the President's legal authority in the realm of emergencies
is at its very weakest when it goes against the expressed will of
Congress. In case the will of Congress was not already clear, soon it
will be made so. The obvious remedy for President Trump's outrageous
and lawless declaration is for Congress to vote to terminate the state
of emergency. The House will vote on such a resolution tomorrow, and
the Senate will soon follow suit.
I know my friends on the other side of the aisle fashion themselves
supporters of the military, defenders of property rights, and stewards
of the Constitution, as do Democrats. This vote on the resolution to
terminate the state of emergency will test our fidelity to those
principles.
Congress should come together to reject in a bipartisan fashion--we
have come together before in bipartisan ways. If ever there were one
moment that cries out for bipartisan rejection of an overreach of
power, this is it. We should reject this naked power grab, this
defacement of our constitutional balance of powers, for what seem to be
largely political purposes.
____________________