President Trump won a strategic victory Friday when he
signed legislation to avoid another government shutdown and provide a down
payment on border security funding – and then declared a national
emergency to get billions of dollars more needed to protect our
southern border.
After insisting for well over a month that the president
would never get any funding for a border wall, congressional
Democrats meekly backed down in the face of President Trump’s unwavering
commitment to border security, giving the White House nearly $1.4 billion for
55 miles of new fencing along the border.
“The fact is a wall is an immorality,” House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said during the partial government shutdown, joking
that she would only give the president $1 out of the $5.7 billion he requested.
The president’s request was based on advice from law enforcement experts.
“There’s not going to be any wall money in the
legislation,” Pelosi later reiterated.
While the government funding bill passed by Congress and
signed by the president Friday isn’t a perfect solution to the ongoing border
crisis, it’s certainly an important start.
By getting the Democrats to abandon their obstructionist
position, President Trump shifted the momentum of the debate in his favor,
setting the stage for him to take executive action to finish the job.
Some conservatives argue that the president should have
rejected the government funding bill passed by Congress because it did not
include the full $5.7 billion needed for a border wall. But this criticism
misses the bigger picture.
Now that Congress has agreed to border barriers in
principle, President Trump has a much stronger hand to play when it comes time
to secure the remaining funds.
Make no mistake: President Trump isn’t finished fighting
for real border security, and he won’t be until our communities are finally
protected from the drugs and crime flowing across our southern border.
Even if Congress refuses to provide another dime in wall
funding, the nearly $1.4 billion down payment it agreed to represents a big
chunk of the president’s request. And the executive actions the president
announced add more than $8.1 billion in funding for a border wall and other
border security measures.
Trump is the first president in a generation who is
willing to take political risks to secure our border. His declaration of a
national emergency proves that he won’t settle for anything less than a fully
funded wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.
As for the government funding bill, it’s over a billion
times better than the best offer Speaker Pelosi ever put on the table. That
alone is enough to make it a victory worth savoring.
