Ok, let’s just forget about yesterday. Apparently Trump can get funds to build the border wall without using a national emergency declaration or approval from congress. The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service (CRS) released a paper internally. CRS, Congress’s in-house research arm, internally published a paper Jan. 10 titled “Can the Department of Defense Build the Border Wall?,” This would be done via the Secretary of Defense. The reason the Secretary of Defense can authorize the building of walls, fences or barriers is to stop the organzed drug carter that are pouring in from Mexico. Maybe the real reason why Trump canned “MadDog Mattis” is because he would have refused to do this.
| Can Trump build the wall without national emergency or congress? Yes |
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Another statute that authorizes the Secretary of Defense to assist civilian law enforcement with
counterdrug activities may provide some authority for the construction of barriers along the border. 10
U.S.C. § 284 (Section 284) provides that the Secretary of Defense “may provide support for the
counterdrug activities or activities to counter transnational organized crime” of any law enforcement
agency, including through the “[c]onstruction of roads and fences and installation of lighting to block
drug smuggling corridors across international boundaries of the United States.” Use of Section 284 would
not require a declaration of a national emergency under the NEA. However, the DOD’s Section 284
authority to construct fences appears to extend only to “drug smuggling corridors,” a condition that may
limit where DOD could deploy fencing.