A decisive legal case is being hashed out in the nation’s capital this month after a breach in power between the legislative and executive branches of government unfolded. President Trump’s declaration of a national emergency at the southern border last week has caused quite a rift in Washington D.C. among lawmakers. So far this year, conservatives in the Republican Party have been pushing to secure funding through a bipartisan bill for President Trump’s southern border wall proposition. A bipartisan bill has not been reached and as a result, last Friday, President Trump declared a national emergency at the southern border citing, “a border security and humanitarian crisis that threatens core national security interests and constitutes a national emergency. The southern border is a major entry point for criminals, gang members, and illicit narcotics... Because of the gravity of the current emergency situation, it is necessary for the Armed Forces to provide additional support to address the crisis.” Ultimately, it is up to the president’s discretion, or their opinion, to decide if the nation is experiencing a national emergency.
Let me first start off with considering the validity of this opinion. According to the Customs and Border Protection and the Drug Enforcement Agency, approximately 90 percent of all heroin that entered the country in fiscal year 2018 was apprehended at ports of entry to the United States and not at the southern border as Trump believes. When locating where the majority of methamphetamine is entering the country from, the available data from Customs and Border Protection states that in 2018, CBP seized 67,292 pounds of meth at legal ports of entry, compared with 10,382 pounds seized by Border Patrol agents along borders. The reality of the drug smuggling situation at the southern border is that the only drug that is regularly being smuggled over the southern border is marijuana according to CBP and the Drug Enforcement Agency.
Next let us consider Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell’s stance on Trump’s declaration. McConnell had repeatedly declared his dissatisfaction with a presidential national emergency declaration previously, but last Friday claimed he now supports the move because it averted the continued suffering of a government shutdown. One which ominously loomed over the American people for a record 35 days, and ended on Jan. 25th, just one short month ago. McConnell has put the blame of the shutdown, not on the president who refused to sign bipartisan bills presented by congress to him during the shutdown, because they did not include the $5 billion of dedicated monies for wall funding demanded by Trump. McConnell stated last Friday that President Trump’s emergency declaration, “is the predictable and understandable consequence of Democrats’ decision to put partisan obstruction ahead of the national interest. I urge my Democratic colleagues to quickly get serious, put partisanship aside, and work with the president...”.
This logic of thinking is a dangerous precedent to set, one that will undoubtedly come back to haunt congressional Republicans when a Democratic president inhabits the office of the presidency. If we allow for the president to essentially shred the constitution by making up declarations of emergency because congress will not appoint his specific demands, we will have set our government up for imminent failure that will long surpass the historic 35 day mark that US citizens were subjugated to earlier this year. We cannot allow this presidential usurp of congressional authority to go unfixed or unfazed. It is imperative to the fundamental policy of democratic governance that the American public educate themselves on this stand off and assert their voice how they see applicable. For if Trump does abuse this power and appropriate funds for his unapproved wall, a more democratic president will mirror Trump’s action and could declare any aspect of American politics an emergency if they see fit. This means that, gun reform, education reform, climate change reform, and health care reform to name a few of the most prominent political debates in Washington today, could all be enacted through various emergency declarations throughout a presidential term.
The truth is that the case of southern border security is a weak case when one tries to consider it a national emergency. In the year 2000, illegal border crossings between ports of entry was over 1.6 million instances compared to only 400,000 instances in 2017. The so called drug smuggling epidemic has been proven to exist prominently at ports of entry and not at the southern border. A study published by the Pew Research Center identified the number of undocumented immigrants in the US to be at 10.7 million in 2016, a substantial decrease from the 12.2 million undocumented immigrants in 2007. These numbers may still sound high to some people, but consider Trump’s rhetoric in 2015 during his presidential campaign when he stated that, "I am now hearing it's 30 million, it could be 34 million,” when referring to the number of undocumented immigrants in the country. If anything is clear right now in this political turmoil, it is that Trump has obviously not done his homework. This is a clear example of how relying on opinion and not research when shaping policy does not garner support, and how when a president fails to garner support, declaring a national emergency to get your way is not the solution, it is the problem. I for one am looking forward to the fit that Trump will throw in the future if his precedent stands and every social policy he is against becomes law because of his own overthrow of the system of checks and balances.
Nick Shook is a senior studying political science pre-law at Ohio University. Please note that the views and opinions of the columnists do not reflect those of The Post. Do you agree? Let Nick know by emailing him at ns258814@ohio.edu.
