Thread by @MatthewSoerens

Some are speculating that this could mean the announcement of a “national emergency” to redirect existing funds to build more border wall, declare a “promise kept” & reopen the government without Congressional Democrats giving a dime more for border security [thread]

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1086395559504764930

It’s really not a national emergency

Far, far fewer people are trying to enter unlawfully at the US-Mexico border than in years past, with apprehensions there down 76% last year from FY2000, 63% from FY2006 & 3% from FY 2016 cbp.gov/sites/default/…

The shift in recent years has been in who is apprehended: no longer mostly single adults, but families, and often not seeking to evade border patrol, but looking for them so as to request asylum under the terms of US law

Some additional fencing would have almost no effect here

To the extent there is a crisis, it’s related to a very slow asylum process, partially a function of Trump administration policy changes (see vox.com/2018/11/28/180…)

We don’t need a wall: we need more asylum officers to process claims & social workers to help care for children

But, in any case, the solution is for Congress to appropriate funds, not a declaration of national emergency. The courts will almost certainly step in & very possibly eventually halt any wall from being built by this legally questionable means, anyway

As plenty of conservatives have warned, if the courts did let this stand, it'd set up a precedent for a huge expansion of executive power. A future Democratic president might declare an emergency to address climate change or to provide access to state-funded abortions, etc.

But if the president does declare an emergency & then reopens the government, it will also be an opportunity lost

Dreamers are set to hear as soon as next week if the Supreme Court will take up a case this year that could end their DACA protections as soon as June

If Democrats would make a public offer right now—conceding the $5 billion the president wants for border security if he’d give (with no other concessions) a path to citizenship for DACA recipients & other Dreamers who arrived in the US as children—he’d have a hard time saying no

(Maybe he would say no, especially if Steven Miller is advising him: after all, a similar deal last February failed when the White House threatened to veto it—not because of Democrats. But the President sure seems more desperate for a deal now, with his poll numbers falling)

I’m on record as being opposed to a wall. I think it’d be largely a waste of money & symbolically ugly. But it’s mostly just that—symbolic, a bit of an extension for a wall that’s already there. Protecting 700,000 DACA recipients who could lose jobs & risk deportation is worth it

All but 3 Democrats voted to give $25 billion for this deal just last February. $5 billion now is a bargain. If they’re not offering it, it suggests the wellbeing of Dreamers is less important to them than seeing the president's poll numbers continue to plummet

Now is a good time to let your elected officials, on both side of the aisle, know that you want them to come together & make a deal: at least legalizing Dreamers—& ideally even the larger undocumented population (with appropriate requirements/fees/etc)—for border security funding

You can speak up by adding your name to this letter from evangelical leaders, urging both sides to accept some compromises in the interest of immigration reforms that are long overdue, which thousands of pastors have been calling for for many years now action.evangelicalimmigrationtable.com