3/3/19

President Donald Trump has declared a national emergency to pull out billions of dollars to build a wall on the southern border. He declared this on February 15th, 2019. Lawmakers refused to allocate 5.7 billion dollars in federal funding after President Trump demanded in funding for the wall.
Fifty-eight democrats and republicans who are former senior national security officials issued a statement Monday saying that there is no factual basis for his national emergency. They want to prepare for a resolution blocking Trump’s declaration. They introduced a resolution to try and break his efforts to build a wall through his emergency powers but Trump promised to veto the measure. The statement they made said that the building of the wall will only “will only exacerbate the humanitarian concerns that do exist at the southern border.” It also says that illegal border crossings are at a nearly 40-year low, arguing that there is no documented terrorism and foreign policy interests.
I asked a few students from Farmington High School their opinions on the national emergency and these are the responses. Multiple students have said that we are not in a state of a national emergency while others have said they think it is. One student said, “I think we should increase border safety but it is being blown out of proportion.” Another student said “The longer we wait the more we are going to push it off and never do it so I feel like we should do it now or not do it at all.”
Sixteen states filed a lawsuit against President Trump, challenging his national emergency. Other groups are suing the administration because of this issue, including the American Civil Liberties Union.
A survey in January 2018 said that 60% of Americans said that they opposed the expanding of the wall. And now with Democrats in control of the House of Representatives it will be harder for Trump to be able to pass building the wall.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/24/politics/security-officials-statement-trump-national-emergency/index.html
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jan/15/trump-mexico-border-wall-status-migrants