President Declares National Emergency at Border

By Al Perrotta Published on February 14, 2019

President Donald Trump has declared a national emergency at our southern border.

In a statement shortly after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell broke the news Thursday, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders released a statement saying:

President Trump will sign the government funding bill, and has he has stated before, he will also take other executive action β€” including a national emergency β€” to ensure we stop the national security and humanitarian crisis at the border. The President is once again delivering on his promise to build the wall, protect the border and secure our great country.

Opposition

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is already threatening to take legal action to stop the president.

In a statement, she and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said, “Declaring a national emergency would be a lawless act, a gross abuse of power.” Except of course, the President does have the authority to declare a national emergency and here is how it could apply in this situation. Presidents have declared 58 national emergencies since the National Emergency Act was signed in 1976. Look for yourself to see whether the situation at the border is as serious as the situation at our southern border.

When asked about the inevitable legal challenges to a national emergency declaration, Sanders told pool reporters, “We’re very prepared, but there shouldn’t be. The president is doing his job. Congress should do theirs.”

Trump may also face heat from within his own party. Last month, Sen. Mario Rubio said declaring a national emergency would be a “terrible idea” and could set a bad precedent. Majority Leader McConnell also warned Trump earlier this month of the dangers of a declaration. However, this afternoon, McConnell announced he would back the declaration.

Ben Shapiro tweeted the president doesn’t need the declaration. He can simply utilize 10 USC 284, declaring parts of the border drug corridors.

Democratic House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told MSNBC, “I think declaring a national emergency where there is no national emergency is not good for the president to do.”

Not a Crisis?

Border patrol agents apprehended more than 100,000 people trying to enter the country illegally just in October and November. Overall in 2018, more than half a million people were caught trying to cross our border. This does not include the countless people who were able to elude border patrol.

Department of Homeland Security estimates 20 percent of those trying to enter illegally make it in. According to Investor’s Business Daily, other studies put the figure at as high as 50 percent.

The White House and DHS have long spoken of the dangers of gang members, criminal offenders, drug trafficking, human trafficking, terrorists abusing loopholes in our system and the humanitarian crisis of migrant families crossing in greater numbers than we’ve seen previously. They note the tens of thousands who have died on the journey.

Doctors Without Borders believes one in three girls and women are raped on the journey. Huffington Post put the figure at 80 percent of females coming from Central America.

Health Risks

Beto O’Rourke said Monday that “Walls end lives.” Only in earthquakes. The health dangers of unsecured borders is a legitimate crisis.

According to George Mason University professor Walter Williams, the CDC itself has concerns about the “possibility of the cross-border movement of HIV, measles, pertussis, rubella, rabies, hepatitis A, influenza, tuberculosis, shigellosis and syphilis.”

South Texas-based Border Control agent Chris Cabrera told Williams, “We are starting to see scabies, chickenpox, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus infections and different viruses.”

Indeed, just this past weekend, the Associated Press reported: “Health officials say seven cases of the mumps have been confirmed at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Houston.” Reports surfaced in October of a chickenpox outbreak at an ICE facility in Aurora, Colorado. Los Angeles is currently wrestling with outbreaks of Typhus. Typhus is connected to the explosion of homelessness and trash in the city. Homelessness made worse, reports The Los Angeles Times, by the influx of undocumented aliens.

By law, legal immigrants must have health screenings. Dodge the screening and you are playing Russian roulette with American lives.

 

 

Al Perrotta is the Managing Editor of The Stream and co-author with John Zmirak of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration.

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