Senate votes to block Trump's border emergency declaration, in bipartisan rebuke teeing up veto
Senate Republicans joined their Democratic colleagues on Thursday in voting to block President Trump's border emergency declaration -- a move that will prompt the president's first-ever veto.
The president made his intentions crystal clear, tweeting "VETO!" moments after the resolution cleared Congress.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., before the vote, said he "takes his hat off" to Republicans voting with Democrats, while accusing Trump of "going around Congress" with the declaration.
"This is a momentous day," he said, declaring that the balance of power was shifting back toward Congress.
The measure heads next to Trump's desk, having previously passed the House. However, Trump plans to veto, and it's unlikely the House and Senate could muster the required two-thirds majority to override.
Trump originally issued the emergency declaration last month after Congress granted only a fraction of the $5.7 billion he requested for a wall on the southern border. Declaring a national emergency allows Trump to steer an extra $3.6 billion to the wall.
The run-up to the resolution vote was marked by last-minute efforts to avoid an intra-party confrontation, but those efforts fell through. Vice President Mike Pence, meanwhile, urged Republicans to support the national emergency declaration in an interview on "Fox & Friends" Thursday morning.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/senate-republicans-join-dems-in-voting-to-rebuke-trumps-border-emergency-declaration
Donald J. Trump
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@realDonaldTrump
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I look forward to VETOING the just passed Democrat inspired Resolution which would OPEN BORDERS while increasing Crime, Drugs, and Trafficking in our Country. I thank all of the Strong Republicans who voted to support Border Security and our desperately needed WALL!
Blunt, R-Mo Republican Policy Committee Chairman.
Lamar Alexander
Susan Collins
Mike Lee
Jerry Moran
Lisa Murkowski
Rand Paul
Rob Portman
Mitt Romney
Marco Rubio
Pat Toomey
Roger Wicker
The usual bunch of traitorous scum
Ted Cruz sent his reasons for supporting Trump. And yes, this must have been typed on his phone.
Tom,
Today, the National Emergencies Act required
the Senate to answer one question: whether there is an ongoing
emergency at our southern border.
I voted to support the President's
declaration because, as Texans realize all too well, there is
one.
This was a difficult vote. I understand my
colleagues' real concerns regarding the vast emergency powers
that Congress has given the President over the last half-century.
I share those concerns.
The press will spin today's vote as a
rejection of border security, as opposition to a wall, and as a
rejection of President Trump's commitment to building the wall.
All of that is false.
Here's what I believe:
Number one, we have crisis on our border. A
heartbreaking emergency, which I've seen first-hand in Texas,
over and over again. Countless human lives hurt or lost by drug
traffickers, human traffickers, and unchecked illegal
immigration.
For example:
In 2018, Customs and Border Protection
apprehended 396,579 people at our border. In the first 4 months
of 2019, CBP has caught another 201,497. If that rate continues,
we'll apprehend over 600,000 people in 2019.
These hundreds of thousands include a
record-high number of families, including over 1,700 identified
cases of an adult lying about a relationship to a child in order
to get into our country. Each of those children are at serious
risk of sexual assault or physical abuse - nobody compassionate
should want even a single boy or girl in the custody of human
traffickers.
Between 2012 and 2018, border authorities
seized over 7,300 tons-almost 14,700,000 pounds-of cocaine,
heroin, methamphetamine, and fentanyl.
Of these, fentanyl seizures alone increased
by almost 400% from 2016 to 2018.
And in just 2014 to 2018, Border Patrol
agents captured 1,630 members of MS-13 alone. That's one member
of MS-13 almost every day.
This is a crisis and a tragedy, and we must
fix it.
Number two, we need to build a wall. From the
first day I ran for Senate, I've fought to build a wall. I urged
the President and the Senate to take up budget reconciliation and
fully fund the wall last year-when we still had majorities in
both houses of Congress. I've introduced the EL CHAPO Act to
build the wall, and pay for it using the billions criminally
forfeited from El Chapo and other drug dealers.
Number three, the Constitution matters.
Profoundly. My whole life, I've fought for the Constitution. The
Constitution protects our fundamental liberties, and every
President should be bound by it, whether Republican or Democrat.
I took an oath to uphold the Constitution,
and I made that promise to the People of Texas.
When President Obama violated the
Constitution through executive amnesty, I led the fight against
that lawless action.
Unlike President Obama, here President Trump
is acting pursuant to explicit statutory authority.
The National Emergencies Act gives the
President the authority to activate more than a hundred distinct
emergency powers, including those he is exercising here. That
statute is, I believe, over-broad. It invites abuse.
Indeed, it is easy to imagine a future
Democratic president using this statute to try to implement a
radical, far-left agenda over the will of Congress and the
American people.
A President Warren could declare climate
change a national emergency and try to suspend offshore drilling.
A President Sanders could declare a national
emergency in the Middle East and try to freeze the bank accounts
of Americans who do business with Israel.
And a President Sanders, or Warren, or some
other avowed socialist, could try to reallocate billions of
dollars, without the consent of Congress, to advance their
socialist policies to address those and other so-called
emergencies.
That is why I am an original co-sponsor of
Senator Lee's ARTICLE ONE Act, which significantly narrows how
these emergency powers can be used going forward. This bill would
end any new national emergency if Congress does not approve it
within 30 days. Combined with a thorough review of ongoing
emergencies, this proposal would reduce the danger of an abuse of
national emergency powers by any of the dozens of far-left
candidates seeking the Democratic nomination.
And I am grateful that the President
announced today-at the urging of many of us-that he will support
our efforts to reform this law, and guard against potential abuse
by a lawless future president, Democrat or Republican.
Yet while I support reforming the National
Emergencies Act, that wasn't what the Senate voted on today.
Current law empowers the President to declare
a national emergency and activate statutory emergency powers when
he determines there is one, and Congress can then vote to
determine whether or not an emergency exists.
And make no mistake: an emergency absolutely
exists on the border, and it is a national and humanitarian
disaster.
We cannot end this emergency without securing
our southern border, and we cannot secure our border without
building a wall.
I support the President's efforts to build
the wall and secure our border. And I will continue to work with
the President and my colleagues in Congress to reform our
national emergency system and protect Congress's Article I
authority.
But today's question was whether there was an
emergency at our southern border. There is, and I voted to
recognize that tragic fact.
For liberty,
Ted Cruz
Are you people constitutional conservatives or not?? Regardless if there is an actual crisis/ border emergency you are supporting a President expressly usurping the will of Congress, you know, power of the purse and all. Whst other national emergency has even tread close to this?
Except when you disagree with it or it's not convenient for you?
Quote from: Cadescove on March 14, 2019, 06:12:40 PM
Are you people constitutional conservatives or not?? Regardless if there is an actual crisis/ border emergency you are supporting a President expressly usurping the will of Congress, you know, power of the purse and all. Whst other national emergency has even tread close to this?
Except when you disagree with it or it's not convenient for you?
Listen Dumb Ass, you do not insult your host then demand I post your nonsense.
When you post, I don't receive an alert, I have to actually log in as Admin, check to see if there are posts awaiting approval, which is low on my priority list of issues I have to address.
This is what this idiot posted to me:
The reporter has made the following comment:
"Put up my post you pussy".As if his stupidity has a date of expiry. :rolleyes:
With that said, POTUS is following the Constitution, it was Congress that relinquished their power to the President back in 1976, giving him the duty of declaring a National Emergency.
So all your bellowing and whining simply exposes your ignorance once again. There will be a Wall. Deal with it!
With that said, this was your final post. I only allowed you to post for the purpose of comic relief in exposing the ignorance and arrogance of idiot lib kids such as yourself, but you, the joke, has run its course.
Quote from: Cadescove on March 14, 2019, 06:12:40 PM
Are you people constitutional conservatives or not?? Regardless if there is an actual crisis/ border emergency you are supporting a President expressly usurping the will of Congress, you know, power of the purse and all. Whst other national emergency has even tread close to this?
Except when you disagree with it or it's not convenient for you?
What? The president can only fight an emergancy if the rest of gvt agrees its an emergancy? You fool.
In this instance who is properly expressing the will of the PEOPLE? The president or congress? Clearly the president is trying to fulfill the will of the people, while congress is trying hard to supress the will of the people. The people hold sovereignty here.