U.S. President Donald Trump will make his case to Americans tonight that a wall is urgently needed to resolve what he calls a crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border, as he tries to make good on a campaign promise in a dispute that has sparked an 18-day partial government shutdown.
Trump’s prime-time address, scheduled for 9 p.m. ET, will be the Republican president’s latest attempt to persuade Democrats to back his barrier on the southern border.
Trump has reportedly considered declaring the border situation a national emergency, which could enable him to bypass congressional review and build his wall without its approval. However, such a step would likely face an immediate legal challenges.
Trump has long maintained that a border wall is needed to stem the flow of illegal immigration and drugs, and in recent weeks has made the issue a priority. Democrats, who now control the House of Representatives, have consistently opposed it, calling it an expensive, inefficient and an immoral way of trying to resolve immigration issues.
They have also made a point of reminding Trump that his campaign promise was to have the Mexicans pay for the wall, not Americans.
The prototypes for Trump’s border wall are seen behind the border fence between Mexico and the United States, in Tijuana, Mexico. (Jorge Duenes/Reuters)
The dispute over wall funding — Trump is demanding $5.7 billion US to help build it — led to a stalemate in Congress over funding for parts of the government. About a quarter of U.S. agencies have been shut down since last month and hundreds of thousands of government workers are likely to miss paycheques this week.
Trump’s remarks from the White House will also aim to shore up support among Republican lawmakers, who are wary of potential backlash from the public as the effects of the shutdown intensify. Vice-President Mike Pence was scheduled to meet with Republican lawmakers later on Tuesday, before Trump’s speech.
Illegal crossings down
Trump will tell the American people that there is “a humanitarian and security crisis” at the border, Pence said in television interviews on Tuesday morning.
While Trump has frequently painted a picture of an “unprecedented crisis” of illegal immigration at the U.S.-Mexican border, illegal crossings there have actually dropped dramatically in recent years. There were nearly 400,000 apprehensions at the border in the 2018 fiscal year, well down from the early 2000s when arrests regularly topped one million annually.
The White House has not said why the situation constitutes a national emergency. Pence did not say whether Trump had made a decision or if the White House had completed its legal review of such a declaration.
“We believe we can solve this through the legislative process,” Pence told CBS, urging Democrats to negotiate.
The number of Central American families coming to the border seeking asylum in the U.S. has risen sharply in the past year. At the same time, the number of arrests of people crossing illegally from Mexico has been been falling since the early 2000s. (Mohammed Salem/Reuters)
In recent years, the border has seen many more Central American families and unaccompanied children turning up — sometimes in caravans of thousands of people — to seek asylum and the government does not have the facilities to take care of them. Such asylum-seekers often present themselves at official crossing points, something that would not change if a wall were built.
Despite the focus on the border with Mexico, most immigrants living in the U.S. without authorization entered with visas and then stayed on when their documents ran out.
Not the ‘American way’
All major U.S. television networks agreed to broadcast Trump’s speech, prompting the Democrats to seek equal air time. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer will deliver a televised response after Trump speaks on Tuesday night. All networks carrying Trump’s address have agreed to carry the Democrats’ response.
Democrats have said they support increased border security measures such as additional U.S. border agents and technology, but have rejected the administration’s claims about the security risks at the border and have raised concerns that Trump will use his speech to present a false narrative.
“Someone is drastically misinforming him,” Democratic U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin told CNN.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said the House Democratic leadership had not yet worked out a strategy for how to respond if Trump declared a national emergency in to circumvent Congress and build the wall.
But he said that if Trump did use a national emergency, the president would be like authoritarian leaders of other nations who use martial law to circumvent the rule of law.
“We don’t think that’s the American way,” Hoyer told reporters on Tuesday.
Trump will continue pressing his case for the wall with a trip to the border on Thursday.
Employees miss first paycheque
Pence said on Monday that progress was made in weekend talks that he led between administration officials and congressional staff over how to break the funding impasse and reopen the government.
A National Park Service ranger looks out onto the city from Trump International Hotel’s historic clock tower, which remains open and staffed by the National Park Service despite the partial government shutdown. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)
Federal employees will feel the pinch from the shutdown on Friday, when they will miss their paycheques for the first time, unless a deal is reached. The shutdown, which has left some 800,000 government workers furloughed or working without pay, is also affecting national parks, airline security screening, housing and food aid, and economic data.
Experts say if the shutdown persists, Canadians entering the U.S. will see an escalating impact at the northern border, where Customs and Border Protection officials are working without pay because their jobs are considered an essential service.
Len Saunders, an immigration lawyer based near the border in Blaine, Wash., said those border guards — many of whom are supportive of the president’s border-security efforts — may soon stop showing up for work as they begin to feel the shutdown’s financial impact.
Mexico won’t pay
Leaders of the nonpartisan National Governors Association made public a letter Tuesday sent to Trump and congressional leaders a day earlier, calling on them to reopen the government, saying “a federal government shutdown should not be a negotiating tactic as disagreements are resolved.”
Trump made his promise for a wall a signature issue in his 2016 White House run. He said Mexico would pay for it, although Mexico was always clear it would not, and he has now turned to Congress for the money.
In rejecting Trump’s demands, Democrats also point to the Trump administration’s controversial handling of families and other migrants from Central America at the border.
Critics have decried the previous separation of migrant children from families, the use of tear gas at the border and the case of two Guatemalan migrant children who died in U.S. custody in December.