[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 198 (Wednesday, December 11, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Page S6960]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                            Border Security

  Mr. President, now, on the recent decision about the wall by the 
Federal court in Texas. Yesterday, the Federal court in Texas issued a 
nationwide injunction, blocking the Trump administration from using 
military construction funding to build his wall. The decision confirms 
what many Democrats and a few Republicans in the past have said. The 
President's emergency declaration, which allowed the administration to 
steal the profits from military families to pay for a wall President 
Trump promised Mexico would pay for, is an outrageous legal power grab.
  The injunction is a win for the rule of law. It should serve as a 
warning to Republicans in Congress and the Trump administration that 
the power of the purse, given exclusively to Congress by the 
constitution, cannot be usurped. At his rally last night, President 
Trump said, The courts are siding with me on the wall. He had not read 
the decision. He has already built so much of the wall. Well, thank 
you, Mr. Trump. You have just buttressed a portion of the wall that 
President Obama built--nothing new.
  As we look ahead to concluding negotiations on appropriations before 
the end of the year, my Republican colleagues should remember that a 
Federal court ruled the Trump administration was beyond its legal right 
when it took funding from other sources to build a wall.