The president could use emergency powers to shut down the internet, freeze Americans’ assets, or test chemical weapons on unwitting human subjects.
SALT LAKE CITY — President Donald Trump declared a national emergency at the southern border Friday in an attempt to unlock billions of dollars to build a border wall that Congress has thus far denied him.
“We’re going to confront the national security crisis on our southern border and we’re going to do it one way or the other,” he said in a televised announcement in the Rose Garden. “It’s an invasion,” he added. “We have an invasion of drugs and criminals coming into our country.”
The declaration has been called “phony” by Democrats, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N. Y., who vowed to introduce a bill with fellow Democrat Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, to stop Trump’s emergency declaration.
Declaring a national emergency allows a president to expand his executive powers by creating exceptions to the rules that normally restrict him, according to The New York Times. The intention is to allow the government to respond quickly to a crisis situation.
There are hundreds of «provisions of federal law delegating to the executive extraordinary authority in time of national emergency,” according to the Congressional Research Service.
Trump is not the first president to declare a national emergency — since the National Emergencies Act was enacted in 1976, presidents have declared national emergencies 58 times, NBC News reported.
There are at least 30 active national emergencies in the United States right now, according to Fox News, the longest of which was prompted by the Iran hostage crisis in 1974, and has been ongoing for four decades straight.
But experts say Trump’s declaration is different.
«(N)one of the emergencies have involved the president of the United States spending money that had not been specifically appropriated by Congress,» Fox News reported.
