The government shutdown has set a new record for duration, giving President Donald Trump a new item to add to his list of firsts, bests and biggests. Hundreds of thousands of lives and livelihoods are in upheaval all because Trump insists on $5.7 billion in congressional funding for an unnecessary border wall.
And soon he might have a new claim to fame, as the first president to declare a national emergency over an imagined crisis of immigration.
The U.S. Border Patrol typically measures its performance on immigration enforcement by the number of apprehensions of illegal crossers at the border. From 2010 through 2018, apprehensions have fluctuated but never exceeded 480,000 a year. The annual average for the past nine years is only 387,000. Contrast that with the 1.64 million who illegally crossed in 2000, or the 1.62 million who crossed in 1986, and its safe to say todays problem doesnt come close to being classified an emergency. The decade-long trend suggests crossing attempts are going down.
Fences have helped in highly populated areas like San Diego, Tucson and El Paso, but even hard-liners in immigration enforcement believe a coast-to-coast wall is unworkable and unnecessary. No one in authority along the border calls the current situation an emergency.
The president absolutely has the authority to make an emergency declaration. Since 1976, his predecessors did it 58 times for justifiable as well as dubious reasons. Few would question the emergency declaration President George W. Bush made days after the 9/11 attacks. Other declarations have tended to be innocuous and highly focused, authorizing overseas operations to go after drug lords, terrorists, Red Sea pirates or dealers in weapons of mass destruction.
Rarely did previous emergency declarations require diverting billions of dollars in federal funding. Trumps would break new ground by authorizing the expropriation of private land, including church property, for his wall. He would divert U.S. military resources and manpower for a domestic action of no military value.
Equally dubious is his claim that this is a humanitarian effort to help immigrants. If he truly wanted to stave off a humanitarian disaster, Trump would focus the effort on creating jobs, fighting endemic corruption, reforming justice systems and eradicating the violent gangs prompting thousands of Central Americans to flee their countries.
The wall would certainly help keep those migrants out, but it would do nothing to ease their suffering or address the root cause of the problem.
Despite Trumps televised speech and trip to the border last week, he still needs to convince an increasingly skeptical Congress and American public. Chances are high hell also have to defend his land seizures in court.
There is one potential upside, though. An emergency declaration would short-circuit the shutdown debate so 800,000 furloughed government workers can finally get back to work.
