\documentclass[12pt]{article} \usepackage[letterpaper,headheight=15pt]{geometry} \geometry{top=1.0in, bottom=1.0in, left=1.0in, right=1.0in} \usepackage{setspace} \doublespacing \usepackage{times} \usepackage{fancyhdr} \pagestyle{fancy} \lhead{} \chead{} \rhead{Rohrer \thepage} \lfoot{} \cfoot{} \rfoot{} \renewcommand{\headrulewidth}{0pt} \renewcommand{\footrulewidth}{0pt} \setlength{\headsep}{0.5in}%top of page to bottom of header \addtolength{\headsep}{-12pt}%max height of header \usepackage{xcolor} \usepackage{hyperref} \usepackage[style=mla,backend=bibtex]{biblatex} \defbibheading{bibliography}[\bibname]{\newpage\centerline{Works Cited}} \hypersetup{ colorlinks, linkcolor={red!50!black}, citecolor={blue!50!black}, urlcolor={blue!80!black} } \addbibresource{emergency_powers.bib} \begin{document} {\parindent0pt\obeylines Holden Rohrer Markley INTA 1200 30 Sep 2020 } \centerline{\large\bfseries Emergency Powers Assignment} % The question \iffalse Congratulations! You are now an advisor to the President. Your first job is a difficult one, as you must provide advice to the President on whether he should use his national emergency powers for the building of a border wall to deal with immigration. President Trump is likely to use Title 10 of US Code, Section 2808 which states the following: "(a) In the event of a declaration of war or the declaration by the President of a national emergency in accordance with the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.) that requires use of the armed forces, the Secretary of Defense, without regard to any other provision of law, may undertake military construction projects, and may authorize the Secretaries of the military departments to undertake military construction projects, not otherwise authorized by law that are necessary to support such use of the armed forces. Such projects may be undertaken only within the total amount of funds that have been appropriated for military construction, including funds appropriated for family housing, that have not been obligated. (b) When a decision is made to undertake military construction projects authorized by this section, the Secretary of Defense shall notify, in an electronic medium pursuant to section 480 of this title, the appropriate committees of Congress of the decision and of the estimated cost of the construction projects, including the cost of any real estate action pertaining to those construction projects. (c) The authority described in subsection (a) shall terminate with respect to any war or national emergency at the end of the war or national emergency." Your job is to provide him with the guidance on the following three questions/issues: 1) Does a national emergency exist? (Make sure to provide justification for your answer) 2) What are the potential negatives from declaring a national emergency? 3) Provide a final recommendation. You may use outside sources in the construction of this answer, however, must properly cite your sources and materials. When citing please use parenthetical citations and a work cited. Each answer to each numbered question should have no more than 150 words. \fi President Trump likely does have the power to declare a national emergency, because there is precedent treating prevention of ongoing non-military criminal activity as a national emergency. Clinton, in 1995, declared a national emergency on a similar basis: ``The National Emergency\dots was declared after increased reports of drug cartels laundering money through American companies'' \autocite{ABC}. The exceptional pieces of his national emergency deal more with its implementation and domestic effects. One of the possible challenges is on the basis of Posse Comitatus, \autocite[6:55]{MSNBC} which ``outlaws the willful use of any part of the Army or Air Force to execute the law unless expressly authorized by the Constitution or an act of Congress'' \autocite[2]{FAS}. Based on attempts to integrate this funding into the budget and now redirecting money from other programs, this appears to be an attempt to circumvent the legislative process rather than address an immediate emergency, which reduces the legitimacy of this move. Declaring this specific national emergency will create a precedent in one direction or another: if it goes unchallenged in the courts, this would mean that the executive has barely checked power---only against a two-thirds majority in both houses \autocite{NYTimes}---to reallocate budgets on a unilateral basis. This will either create a dangerous position for Republicans when a Democratic president goes into office with the power to circumvent Congressional budget decisions. If the court rules against the constitutionality of this decision, then the power of the executive through the National Emergency Act will be reduced. There is, however, a third possibility, Congressional action. There is already majority bipartisan opposition in both chambers, but there isn't a supermajority. Members of Congress attack the legitimacy of this order, saying ``The House and Senate resoundingly rejected the president’s lawless power grab,'' \autocite{NYTimes} and if their opposition does succeed in rejecting this national emergency, future presidents will also likely have less National Emergency power because Congress would be comfortable with blocking it. I don't believe this Proclamation will have much legitimate effect because 20 states' litigation against this order diverting state-destined funds \autocite{NYTimes} along with Congress using the Budget to discontinue this allocation of funds \autocite{WashingtonPost}. This is a good electoral move for Trump, so viewed as a declaration of support for this policy in an attention-% grabbing move to mobilize his base, it will probably pan out, even if it is ultimately declared illegitimate or unconstitutional. \printbibliography \end{document}