Trump declares national emergency to build wall; a constitutional crisis, says expert

Washington, Feb 16: US President Donald Trump on Friday, February 15, announced a national emergency at the southern border of the country for erecting the wall along the boundary with Mexico, leading the US to uncertain political and legal complications.

The US saw a partial government shutdown for over a month in December-January because of a stalemate over the issue that saw the president locking horns with the Congress over the wall's funding.

The shutdown was lifted on January 25 but Trump set February 15 as the deadline for arriving a deal on the wall failing which he would trigger the switch to activate national emergency.

The wall has been one of Trump's major electoral promises made during the presidential poll of 2016 and he has been stubborn over its construction over a distance of 300 miles.

The Democrats, who won control of the House of Representatives in the mid-term elections in November 2018, are trying to show this action of Trump as something reckless.

Questions are also being raised over the constitutional feasibility of Trump's action.

"It's not clear if he can actually do that: The Constitution gives Congress, not the president, the ultimate power to appropriate money.

The president legally has the power to declare emergencies and respond, but can he do that in a situation where Congress has explicitly declined to fund the president's wall?" US-based news and opinion website Vox said.

Vox cited national security law expert Elizabeth Goitein saying that the president can't do what he is doing and he is only leading to a "constitutional crisis".

She posted a series of tweets in which she said that declaring an emergency on the border makes up a power grab which is detrimental to constitutional order.

Here is what Goitein said in some of her tweets: