Talk:National Emergency Concerning the Southern Border of the United States

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Circumventing Congress

User:Srich32977 changed the wording about circumventing congress with the edit summary NPOV : Congress' earlier bill did not say "we refuse to allow this money to be used for ..." thus no "circumvention" (we will see what the courts say about this. I reverted to the original wording about circumventing Congress, because the bill DID specifically prohibit walls; it allowed only the same types of fencing and barriers that currently exist. The 1,159-page bill would provide $1.375 billion for 55 miles of pedestrian and levee fencing in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, significantly less than Trump's $5.7 billion request. It also would prohibit the use of a concrete wall or other Trump prototypes and specify that only "existing technologies" for fencing and barriers could be used.[1] Let's discuss here. -- MelanieN (talk) 21:31, 18 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@MelanieN: Well, the language you cite is vague. Because Trump got his sample wall sections built, they qualify as "existing technology". Similarly concrete sound walls along freeways are "existing technologies" (try scaling one, to use a bad pun). DOD continued to operate and "build" during the "government shut-down" because it operates under a separate allocation process and the proposed projects had already been approved/authorized. (Oftentimes bills will say "we allocate money for such-and-such provided that none of this money will be used for this-or-that".) Because the Prez is diverting money already in a pot previously delegated for particular projects I think the challenges to these diversions will fail. IOW, if Congress had specifically given him money for border construction he could have said "This emergency is so grave that I am diverting DOD construction funds right now." Please un-revert my edit and assist with the clarification tag – S. Rich (talk) 21:52, 18 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I continue to think the original wording (circumvent) was correct. Let's wait for more opinions. And I consider this a separate issue from the "diversion" and "dubious" issue above, and I don't have a particular opinion about that. Go ahead and restore the tag if you like. I only deleted it because it was necessary in order to undo the "circumvent" edit. -- MelanieN (talk) 22:08, 18 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Per the Antideficiency Act the executive cannot spend money not provided by Congress. But the military construction money was "funded". Saying "circumvent" suggests a use of non-funded money; e.g., "Congress did not allocate any money for me to use on the wall, but I'm building it. Why? Because Congress allocated money for other military construction." – S. Rich (talk) 00:55, 19 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I would agree with MelaineN. According to RS, he circumvented the Congress. Yes, "Congress did not allocate any money for me to use on the wall, but I'm building it" - that is what he is telling. My very best wishes (talk) 03:51, 19 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The article is dynamic, but I argue that "circumvent" is POV. Congress had passed the NEA decades ago, and the NEA allows for reallocation of funds to different purposes upon the declaration of an emergency. Congress has not defined what an emergency is, thus the prez has lots of wiggle room. The RS is simply opinion and should be confined to the "reactions" sections. – S. Rich (talk) 17:16, 21 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Multiple reliable sources used "circumvent" soibangla (talk) 18:24, 21 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

What crisis?

I'm having a really hard time finding information about the crisis in the southern border of The United States from this article or elsewhere in Wikipedia. This article seems to be about the declaration of national emergency, and political/legal problems & discussion around it, but not crisis itself if there is one. Ukas (talk) 14:49, 8 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

You're right. It would be useful to have a page people can refer to for fact-based information about this "border crisis" - whether border crossings are up or down compared to previous decades, research on the likelihood of undocumented immigrants committing crimes, the alternate meanings of "border crisis" ("too many illegal crossings" vs. "children in cages") and so on. --MopTop (talk) 16:47, 9 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

2019 United States Border closure listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect 2019 United States Border closure. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. MelanieN (talk) 05:35, 25 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

So are the USA in a state of emergency now?

Have any actual emergency measures been taken? One could argue that Trump's whole presidency is a national emergency, but this one he declared almost instantly disappeared from media coverage after he had signed the veto. If an emergency has been declared, what actual emergency measures are happenening? That's missing in the article, it seems to me. --Johannes Rohr (talk) 14:17, 21 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]