Many conservatives have been scratching their head since hearing the details of the border deal the President signed last Friday in order to keep the government from another partial shutdown. The provisions in the omnibus have been a consternation that doesn’t make any sense on the surface. If we dig deeper, does it start to make more sense?
The short answer is, no. The justification for signing it is that the President doesn’t want to wait for another drawn out battle with Congress that likely won’t yield money for the wall, so he retreated to signing this bill and pushing for his national emergency declaration to get that particular ball rolling. Unfortunately, that means there are two major consequences Americans now have to face. First, we get the provisions of the bill itself, many of which actually work against the idea of securing the border. There are now even more incentives for illegal immigrants and criminals to come to the border with children in tow so they can get what essentially amounts to amnesty. It doesn’t matter if they’re here for a better job or if they’re coming to join MS-13. If they have kids (even if they’re not THEIR kids), they get a pass.
The second consequence is that the wall is going to be stuck in red tape for a long time, perhaps indefinitely. There’s no guarantee the wall will ever get built. It’s no longer in the hands of duly elected representatives of the people. It’s in the hands of bureaucrats and judges who must decide whether or not the President even has the power to declare this national emergency in the first place.
The folks at Blue Collar Logic broke down the justification. They believe the President was forced into a political move that will allow border security to be a primary issue of the 2020 election. Shutting down the government again would have hurt him, so this cave on the border bill and national emergency was the best chance he had at having a winning message for his reelection bid.
Even die-hard fans of the President have to see this as a betrayal on some level. He was elected to make the borders safer and so far, the exact opposite has happened. It’s sad that the guy who was going to drain the swamp is drowning in swamp as we speak.
