President Trump will use his powerful perch at the State of the Union address to ask Congress for money to build his border wall, but few Republicans believe it will be enough to break the impasse.
“It will either bring us together or tear us apart,” Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby, R-Ala., said Monday. “We don’t know.”
The president’s speech comes as a group of 17 negotiators led by Shelby and House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., struggle to come up with a border security agreement that Democrats will agree to and Trump is willing to sign by Feb. 15.
Staff working for Shelby and Lowey are in talks, but there have been no advances toward a deal, Shelby said Monday.
The group of lawmakers will meet privately Wednesday with border security officials to hear their views about wall or barrier funding. That meeting will take place just hours after Trump’s remarks, which were already delayed once when the fight over his border wall led to a 35-day government shutdown.
Shelby said Trump might help his case by appealing to a crowd outside Washington. “It doesn’t hurt any president to have a nationwide audience,” Shelby said.
But other Republicans on Monday appeared resigned to the weekslong fight over the wall.
“Who knows?” Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said when asked how Trump might convince Democrats on Tuesday to finally agree to some federal funding for a wall. “I just hope he indicates flexibility and we can get a compromise.”
Trump is expected to make the case for a border wall or a barrier after making similar pitches over the last several weeks. But Democrats haven’t budged.
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., who heads the Senate Homeland Security Committee and is a proponent of federal wall funding, told the Washington Examiner the president should use the speech to expand his argument beyond the wall to include other immigration problems that require comprehensive reform. Ways to do that include talking about the nation’s asylum laws, and laws that prescribe how unaccompanied minors and families are detained along the border when they come into the United States illegally.
Johnson said the president should use a chart if needed to explain the expansive immigration problems that have served to attract migrant caravans and surges at the border.
“I think at this point in time, not having made an effective case, you have to start bringing out additional arguments and you have to bring the reality in greater complexity,” Johnson said. “There are all kinds of things the president could say.”
From the start, President Trump and his congressional allies were not optimistic the 17 congressional negotiators would be able to secure a deal he’ll be willing to sign by next week’s deadline.
As a result, Trump is considering using a national emergency declaration to reallocate federal money for a wall, without the approval of Congress.
Some Republicans, including Shelby, say the president has the authority to do this. Others such as Collins do not want the executive branch moving money away from projects and programs designated by Congress. The move is likely to face a court challenge, lawmakers point out.
“I think there is a lot of uneasiness about it, both because of the courts and secondly, because obviously it could seize dollars that have been directed by Congress for other issues,” said Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., who is open to the idea.
Collins said she hopes Trump does not use his speech to announce plans to use a national emergency to build the wall.
“I think it’s constitutionally dubious, and for him to repurpose large amounts of funding that has been designated by Congress for other purposes is very problematic,” Collins said.
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said the president should use Tuesday’s speech to point out the places along the border that are effectively secured with barriers, such as the border between California and Mexico. He should call for wall funding, more border patrol agents, and technology, Cotton said, because, “That’s a very popular majority position.”
