Although President Donald Trump announced on Friday afternoon that the government will temporarily reopen while talks continue on the GOP’s proposed border wall, the Republican administration is still considering a potent Plan B.
“As everyone knows I have a very powerful alternative, but I’m not going to use it at this time,” Trump told reporters from the White House Rose Garden. Behind the scenes, however, the White House is making gingerly preparations to bypass Congress altogether by declaring a national emergency and using defense funds to construct the wall.
The administration has already prepared a draft proposal and identified more than $7 billion in potential funds to secure the southern border.
Setting plans in motion
“I am very proud to announce today that we have reached a deal to end the shutdown and reopen the federal government,” Trump said on Friday, signaling the end of the longest partial government closure in U.S. history.
But even before the president seemed to give up on his plans for a barrier along parts of the U.S.-Mexico border, White House officials were already considering an alternative course of action, which could take authority out of the hands of congressional Democrats. The president has reportedly prepared a draft proclamation in the event that he decides to declare a state of emergency along the southern border.
“The massive amount of aliens who unlawfully enter the United States each day is a direct threat to the safety and security of our nation and constitutes a national emergency,” the draft presidential proclamation reads.
It goes on: “Now, therefore, I, Donald J. Trump, by the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the National Emergencies Act, hereby declare that a national emergency exists at the southern border of the United States.”
“A virtual invasion”
Government officials have continued to make amendments to the draft order, making changes as recently as last week. To fund the move, the administration is reportedly considering allocating $681 million from Treasury forfeiture funds, $3.6 billion in military construction, $3 billion in Pentagon civil works funds, and $200 million in Department of Homeland Security funds.
“I have other alternatives if I have to and I’ll use those alternatives if I have to,” the president warned earlier this week. “A lot of people who want this to happen. The military wants this to happen. This is a virtual invasion of our country.”
The White House has agreed to use a stopgap funding measure to keep the federal government open until Feb. 15. The president’s hand may have been forced when House Democrats, who repeatedly blamed Trump for the 800,000 furloughed federal workers resulting from the shutdown, refused to approve Republican-led proposals to pay them.
“It is disingenuous to express outrage over the approximately 800,000 workers missing paychecks, but then continue to vote in favor of withholding their pay. That is precisely what the majority of Democrats are doing,” Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) explained.
Rather than continue to make middle-income families pay for the stubborn partisanship of the anti-Trump left, the president resolved to end the shutdown — at least temporarily. But Trump has an ace up his sleeve — a wild card that permits him to use the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to build the wall.
The easy way
What’s more, by using Department of Defense funds in an emergency order, the administration is empowered to navigate several legal roadblocks that would have slowed construction under a congressionally approved plan. Officials would be able to seize private property for public use in an emergency, skip environmental reviews, and ignore certain contracting laws.
Of course, Trump has been reluctant up until now to establish a state of emergency and invite lawsuits from multiple liberal district court judges. Just like with the president’s travel ban and transgender military ban, activist judges are all but certain to weigh in on the emergency order used to fund the border wall by issuing multiple injunctions and tying the issue up in courtrooms for months to come.
With a conservative majority on the Supreme Court, however, Democrats must come to terms with the fact that Trump will have his wall. They can either do this the easy way — or the hard way.
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