President Trump will sign today a state of emergency with the intention to stop the passing of drugs and human trafficking through the South border.
This declaration grants the United States president a temporarily special power to face a crisis. Trump will have to justify that the arrival of undocumented immigrants and the entry of drugs through the Mexican border require urgent and extraordinary measures.
“Sadly we´ll be sued, and sadly it will go through a process, and happily we´ll win” he said a little resigned to a judicialization of this procedure.
Trump said he would sign the decree as soon as the press conference ended, and assured that he expects the Democratic opposition to “sue” him to block the measure, although he predicted that he will win the judicial battle.
Under the national emergency, Trump may divert funds from other budget items already authorized by Congress and direct them to his border project.
At a press conference in the Rose Garden of the White House, the president stressed that the money that will add $8 billion to the construction of the wall on the Mexican border, aims to stop the drugs, gangs and human trafficking “invasion” to the United States and hence the importance of the Executive Order that he is about to sign.
The idea is to combine money from the approved Congress budget with the item authorized by the emergency declaration. He will use the $1.375 billion that the Capitol approved to cover 55 miles (about 88.5 kilometers) of barriers on the wide southwestern border and, thanks to the state of national emergency, he will have various budget items to finance the rest of the construction of the US-Mexico wall.
The White House announced on Friday its intention to raise about $8 billion for the construction of the wall. With the national emergency $6.6 billion will be added to the $1. 375 billion approved by Congress.
To sum up, the Administration would transfer $6 billion from the Pentagon ($2.5 billion from counternarcotic programs and $3. 5 billion budgeted for military construction projects) and the remaining $600 million would come from the Treasury drug confiscations.
Trumps also thank Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, for his help with the undocumented immigrants’ caravan that have been entering to the United States from Central America, crossing Mexican territory.
The Head of State also reiterated that he would like to sign substantial immigration reform, but only made reference to his priorities – such as ending the process by which permanent residents in the United States can help their relatives to emigrate to the country – and not to a possible regularization of the undocumented.
Translated by: José Espinoza
Latinx Newswire
