National Emergency Powers and Trump’s Border Wall, Explained
WASHINGTON — As the budget standoff between President Trump and congressional Democrats grinds into the third week of a partial government shutdown, the White House has floated the idea that Mr. Trump might invoke emergency powers to build his proposed wall on the Mexican border without lawmakers’ approval.
That route could resolve the immediate crisis by giving Mr. Trump a face-saving way to sign spending bills that do not include funding for his wall. But it would be an extraordinarily aggressive move — at a minimum, a violation of constitutional norms — that would most likely thrust the wall’s fate into the courts. Here is a primer on whether Mr. Trump can use emergency powers to proceed with the project without explicit congressional permission.
What are emergency powers?
The president has the authority to declare a national emergency, which activates enhancements to his executive powers by essentially creating exceptions to rules that normally constrain him. The idea is to enable the government to respond quickly to a crisis.
Although presidents have sometimes claimed that the Constitution gives them inherent powers to act beyond ordinary legal limits in an exigency, those claims tend to fare poorly when challenged in court.
But presidents are on firmer legal ground when they invoke statutes in which Congress delegated authorities to the executive branch that can be generated in emergencies. In a recent study, the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law identified 123 provisions of law granting presidents a range of such powers.
The National Emergencies Act, enacted during the post-Watergate reform era, regulates how presidents may invoke such powers. It requires them to formally declare a national emergency and tell Congress which statutes are being activated.
Can Mr. Trump use them to build a wall?
Maybe. The Trump administration could point to two laws and say they allow officials to proceed with building a border wall without first obtaining explicit authorization and appropriations from Congress, according to Elizabeth Goitein, who oversaw the Brennan Center’s study and is a co-director of its Liberty and National Security Program.
One of the laws permits the secretary of the Army to halt Army civil works projects during a presidentially declared emergency and instead direct troops and other resources to help construct “authorized civil works, military construction and civil defense projects that are essential to the national defense.”
Another law permits the secretary of defense, in an emergency, to begin military construction projects “not otherwise authorized by law that are necessary to support such use of the armed forces,” using funds that Congress had appropriated for military construction purposes that have not yet been earmarked for specific projects.
In light of those statutes and similar ones that give presidents flexibility to redirect funds in a crisis, the Trump administration could point to serious arguments to back up Mr. Trump if he invokes emergency powers to build a wall, said William C. Banks, a Syracuse University law professor who helped write a 1994 book about tensions between the executive and legislative branches over security and spending, “National Security Law and the Power of the Purse.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/07/us/politic...rgency.htm
WASHINGTON — As the budget standoff between President Trump and congressional Democrats grinds into the third week of a partial government shutdown, the White House has floated the idea that Mr. Trump might invoke emergency powers to build his proposed wall on the Mexican border without lawmakers’ approval.
That route could resolve the immediate crisis by giving Mr. Trump a face-saving way to sign spending bills that do not include funding for his wall. But it would be an extraordinarily aggressive move — at a minimum, a violation of constitutional norms — that would most likely thrust the wall’s fate into the courts. Here is a primer on whether Mr. Trump can use emergency powers to proceed with the project without explicit congressional permission.
What are emergency powers?
The president has the authority to declare a national emergency, which activates enhancements to his executive powers by essentially creating exceptions to rules that normally constrain him. The idea is to enable the government to respond quickly to a crisis.
Although presidents have sometimes claimed that the Constitution gives them inherent powers to act beyond ordinary legal limits in an exigency, those claims tend to fare poorly when challenged in court.
But presidents are on firmer legal ground when they invoke statutes in which Congress delegated authorities to the executive branch that can be generated in emergencies. In a recent study, the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law identified 123 provisions of law granting presidents a range of such powers.
The National Emergencies Act, enacted during the post-Watergate reform era, regulates how presidents may invoke such powers. It requires them to formally declare a national emergency and tell Congress which statutes are being activated.
Can Mr. Trump use them to build a wall?
Maybe. The Trump administration could point to two laws and say they allow officials to proceed with building a border wall without first obtaining explicit authorization and appropriations from Congress, according to Elizabeth Goitein, who oversaw the Brennan Center’s study and is a co-director of its Liberty and National Security Program.
One of the laws permits the secretary of the Army to halt Army civil works projects during a presidentially declared emergency and instead direct troops and other resources to help construct “authorized civil works, military construction and civil defense projects that are essential to the national defense.”
Another law permits the secretary of defense, in an emergency, to begin military construction projects “not otherwise authorized by law that are necessary to support such use of the armed forces,” using funds that Congress had appropriated for military construction purposes that have not yet been earmarked for specific projects.
In light of those statutes and similar ones that give presidents flexibility to redirect funds in a crisis, the Trump administration could point to serious arguments to back up Mr. Trump if he invokes emergency powers to build a wall, said William C. Banks, a Syracuse University law professor who helped write a 1994 book about tensions between the executive and legislative branches over security and spending, “National Security Law and the Power of the Purse.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/07/us/politic...rgency.htm
