BORDER/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/WALL: “President Trump declared a national emergency on the border with Mexico on Friday [2-15-19] in order to access billions of dollars that Congress refused to give him to build a wall there, transforming a highly charged policy dispute into a confrontation over the separation of powers outlined in the Constitution. Trying to regain momentum after losing a grinding two-month battle with lawmakers over funding the wall, Mr. Trump asserted that the flow of drugs, criminals and illegal immigrants from Mexico constituted a profound threat to national security that justified unilateral action…But with illegal border crossings already down and critics accusing him of manufacturing a crisis, he may have undercut his own argument that the border situation was so urgent that it required emergency action. ‘I didn’t need to do this, but I’d rather do it much faster,’ he said. ‘I just want to get it done faster, that’s all.’”
–Peter Baker, “Trump Declares a National Emergency, and Provokes a Constitutional Clash,” The New York Times online, February 15, 2019