I agree. He doesn't seem to believe that. But Harvard Law Professor, Noah Feldman feels like there is no way for Trump to do it. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/a...clare-national-emergency-to-build-border-wall. Plenty of other experts disagree with Lawfare. https://www.sfchronicle.com/nation/...declaration-for-Trump-s-wall-Not-13518817.php Fox's own legal experts also disagree. https://www.newsweek.com/fox-news-legal-expert-trump-wall-1283456
I'm seeing lots of commentary this morning about Trump's 'reckless' citing of illegals' criminality. A bit of digging and I ran across this. I cannot vouch for any of the numbers obviously, but assuming this reporter is accurately summarizing the GAO report she relies on, the numbers are significant: 1 in 5 US prison inmates are illegal, and 91% of those are from just six countries. She also comments on why these numbers seemingly went unreported, i.e., because the overall trend has been downward over the past decade: "Why hasn’t this made headlines? It could be the way the GAO presented the results as a positive improvement. It took me some time to sort through and analyze what was really being reported. In addition, though they squabble publicly, some among both major political parties have a vested interest in keeping the status quo. Even when a single party has held both houses of Congress and the presidency, they haven’t really changed much to address illegal immigration one way or another." https://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/407312-one-in-five-us-prison-inmates-is-a-criminal-alien
which is why it will be fun to watch this thing unfold in the courts should Trump decide to go this route and he is challenged on it, which is a virtual certainty
fwiw I thought the Lawfare writer (Quinta Jurecic) did a decent job of addressing Noah Feldman's argument
Jurecic tries to lessen concerns about trump pulling the national emergency card... but elsewhere in her op piece, she says: Lawfare's Chesney also goes into details about this... https://www.lawfareblog.com/can-president-trump-fund-wall-declaring-national-emergency
It is intentionally misleading. There are going to be a higher portion of illegal immigrants because they are all breaking federal law. Just like Fox News trying to pretend half of all arrests are illegal aliens, when that was just federal arrests. Its important to not be misleading with facts.
So, I read through this article, and this passage caught my eye: So I went to the source document that the author was quoting, and realized that she's reading the numbers wrong (or conveniently ignoring them to make a point). She makes it seem that the numbers are from the period of 2010-2016, but these numbers are actually pulled from 1974-2017 for criminals that are still in the system. There's also a note, that the author leaves out of her opinion piece, about the fact that when an inmate is transferred to another prison, the numbers just count it as if the person is a new inmate. Plus/Minus on the true numbers is 7%, which isn't huge, but it isn't small either. So, while the headline is correct in that 1-5 (federal) prison inmates is an illegal alien, the actual numbers of incarcerated illegals is truly going down as the GAO report highlights.
couple more pieces that argue Trump does have the authority to act unilaterally. "Congress has refused the funds needed for the wall, so Trump is openly claiming the right to unilaterally order construction by declaring a national emergency. On its face, that order would undermine the core role of Congress in our system of checks and balances. I happen to agree that an emergency declaration to build the wall is unwise and unnecessary. However, the declaration is not unconstitutional. Schiff, now chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, insists that Trump “does not have the power to execute” this order because 'if Harry Truman could not nationalize the steel industry during wartime, this president does not have the power to declare an emergency and build a multibillion dollar wall on the border.”' "The problem is Trump does have that power because Congress gave it to him." http://theglitteringeye.com/hoist-by-your-own-petard-2/ which is discussing https://thehill.com/opinion/judicia...to-declare-national-emergency-for-border-wall
There's no question that there will be legal challenges, but they'll fail. The Congress could stop trump if they wanted to, but it would require a majority vote in both the house and senate to do so, and the Senate has 54 Republicans now so that means one way or the other, the border barrier is being built.
a "record" number of family units apprehended along the southern border in December. I have no way of judging either the numbers or the analysis here, other than to say if true this assessment runs against the grain of the narrative offered by anti-wall folks https://www.nationalreview.com/news...s-apprehended-at-southern-border-in-december/
