Democrats and Republicans Debate the Legitimacy of Trump’s Border Crisis

On Tuesday, Congress began considering a resolution that would end the national emergency that President Trump has declared at the southern border in order to secure the funds to construct a border wall, which Congress has repeatedly denied him. The resolution is certain to pass the Democrat-controlled House, likely to pass the Senate, and all but certain to fail a veto-override vote once Trump inevitably rejects it.

Debate began around noon, with a speech by Representative Norma Torres, of California, who compared Trump to Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro and argued that the emergency declaration amounted to creeping authoritarianism. "Mr. Speaker," she said, "we cannot allow this President, or any President—Republican or Democrat—to take us down the same path of Venezuela, Guatemala, and Nicaragua. All to build a wasteful and ineffective wall along our southern border."

Representative Rob Woodall, of Georgia, kicked things off on the Republican side with a speech noting the speed with which Democrats advanced the resolution. "A minute and six seconds it took to read the resolution before us today, Mr. Speaker," he said. "And that's a minute and six seconds longer than this resolution has been considered in total in every committee throughout this Capitol." He went on, "You heard my colleague talk about how critical this resolution of disapproval is as it relates to our constitutional powers. You heard [the emergency declaration] described as a power grab equivalent to those of discredited despots. And we haven't talked about it at all in this chamber, in these committees—not one witness has testified."

Representative Mo Brooks, of Alabama, echoed Trump in his renderings of the havoc supposedly wrought by undocumented immigrants. "In fiscal year 2018, more than two thousand illegal aliens were apprehended by federal agents for homicides committed on American soil. Worse yet, roughly thirty-one thousand Americans die each year of heroin and cocaine overdoses, ninety per cent of which flows across America's porous southern border. Hence, we can expect at least thirty-three thousand dead Americans each year until America secures our porous southern border."

"Mr. Speaker," Brooks bellowed, "how many dead Americans does it take for open-border advocates to support border security? How much American blood must be on guilty hands before Congress recognizes the national emergency we face at America's southern border?"

Torres could have replied a number of ways. By stating that the majority of drugs that come across the border are smuggled in through established ports of entry rather than through the stretches of land that a border wall would be built across. Or noting that the available data shows that two thousand illegal immigrants were not actually arrested for homicide in 2018, and that research has consistently shown that immigrants do not commit crimes at a higher rate than native-born Americans. But Torres, who was born in Guatemala and was brought to the United States when she was five, responded with a question of her own.

"Mr. Speaker, we can talk about the scary people from our southern border," she said. "I'm not that scary-looking, am I?"