«We can call a national emergency. I may do it. We can call a national emergency and build it very quickly,» Trump stated on Friday. «Under the military version of eminent domain and under homeland security, we can do it.»
With the federal government still shut down over funding for a wall on the U. S.-Mexico border, the President Donald Trump floated an unusual proposition on Friday: Let’s just seize a bunch of privately-owned land and have the U. S. military build a wall without those pesky lawmakers in Congress getting in the way.
«We can call a national emergency. I may do it. We can call a national emergency and build it very quickly,» Trump stated during a briefing in the Rose Garden following a lengthy sit-down with Democrats over border security. «Under the military version of eminent domain and under homeland security, we can do it.»
«You have to use eminent domain,» he added. «If we had one person that wouldn’t sell us…then we wouldn’t be able to build proper border security because we’d have that big opening.»
Trump isn’t totally wrong. While the federal government has invoked the principle of eminent domain to build public utilities like roads and highways for decades, the «military version» Trump mentioned likely refers to 10 U. S. Code § 2663, which provides for the acquisition of land for military purposes including «construction, or operation of fortifications, coast defenses, or military training camps.
