Trump Declares National Emergency at U.S.-Mexico Border

President Trump declares a national emergency after failing to secure funding to build a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border, a 2016 campaign promise. (Wikimedia Commons)

President Donald Trump declared a national emergency on the US-Mexican border on February 15. The declaration came after Congress refused to allocate billions of dollars to Trump’s perceived national security threat at the border.

Trump has stated that the reasoning behind his declaration of a national emergency is the constant influx of drugs and criminals coming from Mexico. He also discussed how Mexicans were coming in illegally without properly going through the necessary protocol, claiming that it is unfair to all those who went through the process following American law.

President Trump has been adamant about building the wall and providing security at the nation's southern border. Ever since he ran for the presidency, Trump has dedicated a significant amount of time in advocating for the border wall.

After a nearly two-month stalemate with Congress regarding the funding for the wall, Trump decided to act unilaterally. After finding out Congress would not give him the $5.7 billion he sought out during the second shutdown, in a televised statement in the Rose Garden, Trump stated, “We’re going to confront the national security crisis on our southern border, and we’re going to do it one way or the other.”

Congress has expressed outrage at Trump’s circumvention of their authority. In a joint statement by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, they stated, “This is plainly a power grab by a disappointed president, who has gone outside the bounds of the law to try to get what he failed to achieve in the constitutional legislative process.”