Firm like a wall

President Donald Trump yesterday declared a national emergency in a bid to fund his promised wall at the US-Mexico border without congressional approval, an action Democrats vowed to challenge as a violation of the US Constitution.

The Republican president’s move to circumvent Congress represented an escalation in his efforts to make good on a 2016 presidential campaign pledge to build a wall to halt the flow into the country of illegal immigrants, whom Trump says bring crime and drugs. He also signed a bipartisan government spending bill on Friday that would prevent another partial government shutdown by funding several agencies that otherwise would have closed on Saturday.

The funding bill represents a legislative defeat for him since it contains no money for his proposed wall - the focus of weeks of conflict between him and Democrats in Congress. Trump made no mention of the bill in rambling comments to the media in the White House’s Rose Garden. He had demanded that Congress provide him with $5.7 billion in wall funding as part of legislation to fund the agencies.

That triggered a historic, 35- day December-January government shutdown that hurt the US economy and his opinion poll numbers. By reorienting his quest for wall funding towards a legally uncertain strategy based on declaring a national emergency, Trump risks plunging into a lengthy legislative and legal battle with Democrats and dividing his fellow Republicans, many of whom expressed grave reservations on Friday about the president’s action.