Every American now knows the exhausting, cornerstone facts: An intransigent US House Speaker, flush with power and sure her socialist agenda is the future, refuses to fund anything like a protective barrier along the southwest border. A resolute President, behind the Resolute Desk, pledges to build a barrier that aims to create credible deterrence, diminish the gush of illegal narcotics and people, protecting America’s public health, public safety and territorial integrity.
To date, we have a standoff. The stalemate has played out as a purely political issue. President Trump requested just under six billion dollars for the “wall,” from a federal budget that tops out at four trillion dollars. Note, a trillion equals one million million, so the President asked for 0.000015 of the federal budget to start the protective barrier or wall. The House Speaker – and her left-lurching caucus – said “no.” The president then offered a half dozen compromises to get to “yes,” and still got “no.”
With the partial government shutdown lifted until February 15, the President has endorsed a bipartisan effort to get to “yes,”’ while others within the White House and Republican Party suggest either a second partial shut-down or declaring – as past presidents have for other reasons – a “national emergency,” effectively declaring the illegal drug and illegal immigration crises have reached a “tipping point.”
These three options – political compromise, partial shutdown, and national emergency – are all possible. But there is a fourth way, and it may at this time be worth considering. This fourth way requires that the issue become less political and more administrative. It would allow the socialist-beholden Democrats to claim they blocked this security effort, for whatever that gained them; it would more importantly allow the President to use executive power to resolve the issue, without a national emergency declaration.
What is this option? It is the marriage of two executive authorities. The first is found in the longstanding Title 10 authority, with support of the Defense Department, to build barriers along the southwest border to create counter-narcotics and counter-transnational deterrence.
The specific provision, Section 284, reads: “The purposes for which the [Defense] Secretary may provide support (a) for other departments of agencies of the Federal Government or State, local or tribal law enforcement agencies, are the following … [include] (7) construction of roads and fences and installation of lighting to block drug smuggling corridors across international boundaries of the United States.”
To be even more specific, there are eight DEA-identified regional drug transportation “corridors” and two of them, corridors E and F, cover the entire southwestern border. Thus, the initial authorization apparently exists already for creating such barriers, without statutory limit, if the resources were available – without needing an emergency or shutdown.
This moves us to the second question: Where does the President find roughly six billion dollars, if the US House Speaker and her caucus refuse to make resources available in pending appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security, which nests Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the US Coast Guard (USCG)?
The answer is in executive power of to transfer and reprogram resources. For anyone interested, these authorities are explained in the Congressional Research Service’s “Transfer and Reprogramming of Appropriations.” Notably, every president has used these powers, extensively.
In a nutshell, any President may, unless otherwise proscribed, meet unforeseen needs with “authority to shift funds from one appropriations or fund account to another.” In addition, departments and agencies are “permitted to shift funds from one purpose to another within an appropriations account.”
As a practical matter, using this transfer and reprogramming authority, de-conflicting it with any prior statutory limitations, the Bush Administration transferred enormous sums of money (billions) from departments like State to Defense, within departments and agencies, in some cases with congressional concurrence, in others by notification.
These transfers and reprogramming decisions could probably be executed in small amounts, sequentially or concurrently, made geographically and functionally specific, and aligned by interagency working group or task force to assure key parts of these two southwest corridors for drug trafficking are gradually covered by greater deterrent barriers.
Finally, there is an underutilized authority that is seldom even recognized, but genuinely valuable. As an Assistant Secretary of State under George W. Bush and Colin Powell, I used it to good effect. This is the authority to review money that was obligated (to prevent it from being rescinded), but never liquidated, that is never yet spent. There is actually a LOT of that money “parked” in what amount to escrow accounts, obligated to contractors for future use, and yet never spent.
Example: What I did as a newly-confirmed Assistant Secretary was find (in one bureau) $60 million that had not been liquidated, going back ten years. I then required that money be liquidated by Ambassadors within 48 hours for the purpose appropriated by Congress, or I would de-obligate it immediately, and put it against new requirements. The entire $60 million came back to taxpayers, and was applied against future requirements – reducing future costs. That could also be done to pay for the wall; just imagine how many bureaus and agencies reside in federal departments.
In short, there is a non-political way to begin work on the border wall. That could be executed if the other options fall short. Then we could start the hard work – of fighting socialism, resolving the wider illegal immigration and drug crises, and reaching agreements that will help early 2020 be smoother than 2019. Just an idea.
Well in two weeks we will all see what happens. Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats on the so-called bi-partisan committee continue to say they are for border security (lie), but not one dollar for a wall, fence, barrier or whatever other term one might use to describe a permanent, fixed barrier. Their current position also includes 1,000 fewer beds at ICE detention centers, which would force ICE to go back to “catch and release” for the criminal illegal aliens they catch in more cases. It also seems Jared is spearheading the strategy for Republican negotiations with the Democrats, so I can only imagine what he will be willing to trade away to get a deal. Several reports this morning indicate he may be suggesting giving DACA folks (many are in their 20’s, so they are NOT kids anymore) some sort of permanent residency status (hopefully not amnesty and full citizenship as that would be a huge mistake for so little money) to try and persuade Democrats to give the President some dollars (not $5.7 billion according to reports) for new barrier construction. So again, we will see how this all turns out.
As for the substance of the article, yes the process laid out by the author is a constitutional means for the President to cobble together the amount he seeks for this year. So is the the other strategy of declaring a national emergency and using funds that OMB has already identified to give the President the full $5.7 billion the border experts have already told the President is needed to secure the highest priority crossing points. However in both cases, while the President is well within his authority and power to choose either option, both will be immediately challenged in court by the left. A progressive Obama era or Clinton era federal judge from either the 9th or 2nd Circuit Courts will issue a stay within 10 minutes of the President selecting either option. Yes, those challenges will eventually be over-turned by the SCOTUS as they are without legal merit, but it will take years for the case to wind its way up to being heard by them. In the meantime, no wall construction will occur, which is the goal of both the Democrats and the RINOs in Congress.
This isn’t about the money for the Democrats and the RINOs, as the $5.7 billion dollars is only 0.03 percent of the total federal budget. That amount isn’t even a rounding error in the grand scheme of things. The refusal of the Democrats to budge an inch during the federal government shutdown cost a couple of multiples of that amount (between $12 and $16 billion by various estimates). It’s strictly about the Democrats exercising the power to prevent the President from fulfilling a major campaign promise ahead of the 2020 elections and keeping the borders wide-open to continue the importation of future Democrat voters.
Too bad that the President didn’t push for the wall two years ago. Paul Ryan may have been feckless but he was in favor of physical barriers as part of a border security package.
Build the wall/the fence/the infrastructure by any means necessary, please! Border control agents in the area are the best source to gauge the need for a physical barrier. If there are relatively few illegal crossings over or under existing barriers, I’d say that’s reason enough to add new (and repair damaged) fencing. And it appears that there are provisions on the books to support funding.
Dividing 4,000,000,000,000 (trillion, budget) by 6,000,000,000 (billion, wall) gives us 666. So, 1/666th of the budget goes toward the wall, or about .0016% of the budget. I know those numbers disagree with Mr. Charles’. (There are a thousand billions in a trillion.) Any way you slice it, the amount requested is a very very small part of the budget. Considering the SAVINGS realized by building it and preventing “bad people” from getting into the U.S., it’s a drop in the bucket.
What about El Chapo?
And what are we going to do about the 25 million illegals here now? They are draining our economy. Mandatory eVerify is an answer. Cut off the jobs magnet and the freebies that we, the taxpayers are paying for, and they will go home. Deport and re-enter legally.
I agree another way needs to be used to help President Trump reach out and do what he and many others needs to be done to secure our border. Even though we know those who want to get in our country will still try to enter by crook or hook. But something absolutely needs to be done.
Would someone please let our current President know this!
If you have OAN One America News, it’s a great source of news with no commercial interruptions….educational segments, if on your channel lineup, every hour they show a real time estimate of how much, how many, year to date figures on how much it’s costing us taxpayers for “ILLEGALS”, on Diect TV is channel 347….
I still think the left would jump at the idea of their image on the wall. Trump could auction off the most visible spots. It would be a fundraiser, no cost to taxpayers.
No matter which avenue President takes, Pelosi will declare it political. However, whatever it takes is worth it.
Privitize Construction
Bidding war for.
Go Emergency Decree?
Bypass Cong on other.
Your idea was an amazing one, but don’t you think Trump and/or someone on his committee would have already thought of this? Whatever it takes, that barrier needs to be built sooner than later!!!!! It has been promised so many times by every single POTUS within the last 50 years, but now that Trump is actually doing something about it, all those other previous “leaders” (I choose that word lightly) refuse to admit they also promised this. Their ignorance is disgusting and their attitudes toward Trump is beyond anything I have ever witnessed in my life. NO POTUS has ever been treated like this and it’s time WE as a nation back what he is trying to do. I don’t care if you like him personally or care for some of his words, he is getting the job done and he is keeping his promises, unlike any of those others in office!!!!!
This demoncratic party is NOT the party of JFK…..they are nothing but communists trying to take care and control everyone, yet these younger voters aka fools have no clue!!! FREE FREE is all they hear and soon they will be paying for their bad choices!! There are some that truly believe these demoncrats are pushing higher taxes to help the less fortunate!!!!
The author leaves out one very perplexing detail: no matter how he proceeds, the president is going to face an order to cease from a communist federal judge, just as he has in the recent past. That is the ace in the hole the speaker believes makes her omnipotent in this matter. My thought: either line up another federal judge to grant imprimatur to the wall, or to simply defy the communists, calling them out at the same time. Its time to check the pulse of the american people to see whether we’ll end up swamped with third world dem voters and become Venezuela, or whether we are willing to support the president in his one man fight to restore this country.
can’t understand how those who support the idiot haters and left are proud to do so. how can any of these people call themselves American citizens. There is nothing American about them. we have got to stop them and we can do it. We need to get in touch with everyone we know even your liberal friends and make them realize Pelosi etc are wrong, wrong, wrong.
Trump was an IDIOT for ending the government shutdown on the Dems promise they’d negotiate border security if he ended the government shutdown. I can no longer support him because of this. All these government workers would have to have done was explain to their creditors & of course show proof of their employment & they would’ve received waivers from their debts until the Dems were forced to come to the table, after all they still got their pay when it ended. Trump let me down when he signed the first omnibus without border security & said he’d never do it again. This time I’m done! He’s as bad as they are! I’m not voting for anyone in 2020!
Recommend going all in with the Democrat talking points. give them their technology. Armed UAVs patrolling and stopping criminals with Hellfires and dumb bombs. Autonomous land vehicles armed with .50 cal or GAU 17 criminal stoppers.
AND then THEY will RUN CRYING TO THEIR LIB JUDGES—AND BINGO–GET STOPPED AGAIN ! ?
Makes sense. Many corporations will recall funds for specific projects if they are not undertaken or completed in a certain length of time then re-appropriate those funds to another project. Just government doing that in these cases.
I think this is a great idea! I hope it will be brought to the Presidents attention and that he will utilize it to get the wall built! AS you said, I am sure there is a lot of money out there that could be used and since it is, technically, my money and yours, it would be nice to see it spent for something this country needs.
I am already getting AMAC’s newsletter, I think, since it comes in my email.
Why haven’t we heard of this before? He should take money from planned parenthood!!!!!!
Why doesn’t President Trump dip into Pelosi and other Senate pay check by reducing their wages.Bet the money for the wall would be generated quickly.
Love your recommendations for our President. hope he will use one of them if Pelosi and her crew disagree with the President. Thank You
Getter dun
Good we need the wall , but we do not need another shut down, a great idea to accomplish what we want.
It is an emergency to build the wall. So when Pelosi tries to stop it, isn’t that Sedition? Usurping the Constitution? Can’t he arrest her and her followers? This BS must stop or we will be Venezuela II.
Build the wall
Call it what it really is! Communism!! Remind people of the Union of Soviet SOCIALIST Republics. Socialism IS Communism!!!!!!!
The President WILL BE stopped by a lib judge’s injunction. Then the President ‘MUST’ PROCEED…EVEN IF IT CREATES A constitutional crisis. BUILD THE WALL RET US ARMY
At least several issues critical to America that are dependent upon border security and border control are putting us in peril. The one most overlooked and understated is our sovereignty. When we are no longer a sovereign nation we loose all control of our destiny as a once united people. Factions from other nations and their cultures compete and we will lack a common purpose as factions compete for their singular purposes. The second is public safety as we are currently being unnecessarily placed in harm ways from foreign nationals criminal elements, potential jihadist terror attacks gangs and international drug cartels. Factions of a nation that do not assimilate into the native population will destroy the nation from within, just as we are already seeing. Anyone that wishes to become an American citizen must go through our nation’s legal immigration process or be deported, period. We cannot be the world’s keeper. Our ecology is being devastated by millions of illegals crashing our borders, dumping their trash and waste throughout the fragile ecology of the southwest. The illegals bring waste and diseases, overload our infrastructure and overtax law enforcement our judicial and penal systems. We pay for their children’s education, their healthcare, supplemental nutrition (SNAP), housing assistance, and welfare and they take our native citizens jobs while we do without. They earn money, mostly un-taxed and then send the money back to their native lands un-taxed. Then we give their children instant citizenship that extends to the entire family. Illegal and excessive legal immigration are solely responsible for the extinction of America’s middle-class,the envy of the entire world. Speaker Pelosi needs to be impeached for criminal acts against the American people for failure to enforce our immigration laws and to provide for the defense of the homeland by ignoring the threat imposed by the lack of adequate border walls. She is the most un-American speaker of the House to ever hold that office. She believes she is all powerful and can rule and control the entire U.S. government and all U.S. citizens. She ignores the laws and is an affront to the rule of law. Her impeachment for many crimes prior to this term as speaker cannot begin soon enough.
This way or any way feasibly possible would be great! We are not socialists, so let’s get this wall done to protect our country and democracy!
Build the wall; deport illegals; end chain migration; no path to citizenship for illegals; end birth right citizenship, as it isn’t within current law.
Have you shared this with anyone of power in Washington? Does President Trump know this alternative is available? Please let someone who can actually do something know about this!
Build the wall. No excuse. Reallocate the funds and get on with it. Screw the liberal judges. They can rule. They cannot enforce.
Just 2 days ago Gary franchi of next news.. just put up his video of proof that we have a constitutional code to use for building the wall and funding.. please go to next news.com and if you have a Twitter account please tweet that video to President Trump..
I wanted to immediately tweet this proof of the constitutional code video..but I could not set up a Twitter account fast enough to be able to do it…if anyone out there already has a Twitter account watch this video and then you will want to send it to the president ..thank you
I’m sure there are legal hurdles, but what about Ted Cruz’s idea of getting $$$ from El Chapo?
Parts of this can be a “virtual” wall with drone or other physical observation and detention activities along with physical deterrent.
Has this been passed on to the White House??? I think it’s imperative that he presents these options.
Has this been presented to President Trump??? This would get our wall and not have to make any deal with “Just say no Nancy”.
Send this to the President!!!
I think that President needs to move funds for good use, like building the wall. I heard in the news that the shut down cost the Tax apayets $11 Billion. Well where does that money come from, Nancy P. Budget? You could have put these finds to work & built the wall twice what the President wanted. If walls don’t work like the other President OBAMA Stated why did he have a wall built around his rented home before he moved out of the White House?
Congress what ever you do with health care don’t put the US Government in charge they don’t no how to manage! Look at our burned up forests! It’s called “Management”!
They don’t know how to do it! CLEAN UP THE FORSETS DEAD TREES & UNDER BRUSH NEED TO BE REMOVED! MY GRAND FATHER, & FATHER WERE STOCKMAN OUR PRIVATE FOREST NEVER LOOKED LIKE YOURS! We had sheep & cattle to graze in the areas. Where are all of our livestock now that used to use the forests? YOU PUT THEM OUT OF BUSINESS WITH RAISING GEAZING FEES & the WONDERFUL NAFTA!
KEEP IT UP YOU WILL LOSE THE NATION!
Declare state of emergency and fund the wall. Not having a physical wall built of concrete, steel or both is a clear danger to our national security. The use of technology and increased man power at the border is also helpful to our security,. However, having the wall is as important.
No matter what Trump does, the (d)s likely have a liberal judge in the wings waiting to jump up and yell “unconstitutional”!
Tell President Trump how to do this!!
Mr. President, BUILD THE WALL! Screw Pelosi and Schumer. They do not represent the American people. Just a few short years ago they both are on record (video) demanding the building of a border wall. This is purely a power play by the Demorats.
Build the wall anyway you can and have to mr Trump .It is time we quit talking and start building before it is to late and more crimals come to the us and kill our children and our families.
Are you making this suggestion to someone in government???
I don’t know where the politicians are getting their reports but there are more Americans that are tired of all this bickering in congress and do want the border secured. So It is time for all of us to get some guts and get behind our president and let him know he needs to declare the national emergency and get things done. A another shutdown is not the answer unless you are going to stop Pelosi’s and Shuler’s pay check doing the next shutdown. After all Obama helped to destroy America we need to let Trump clean up this corrupt government by cleaning house. I for one have prayed and still am praying for our government and our president that The real God will intercede. After all there is nothing impossible for him to do. How many more lives have to be lost to drug and violence by the cartel and gangs before this nation will wake up.
Where did Obama get that pallet of cash to send to Iran? I don’t think it was appropriated by Congress. Maybe President Trump needs to find that stash, and grab a handful.
Where did Obama get that pallet of cash to send to Iran? I don’t think it was approved by congress.