Groups opposed to President Trump’s immigration agenda charged Friday that the president is trying to create the illusion of a border crisis to justify emergency spending on a wall between the United States and Mexico.
“Today’s national emergency declaration so soon after Congress reached agreement on border security makes clear that the president is trying to create a crisis, not solve one,” said Beth Werlin, executive director of the American Immigration Council.
International Rescue Committee’s senior vice president of U.S. programs, Jennifer Sime, agreed the reasoning for more wall was unjustified, but that a real crisis in Central America was prompting people to flee El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras in hopes of attaining asylum in the U.S.
“This is clearly a manufactured ‘emergency.’ Not only are the number of irregular border crossings at their lowest — the real crisis, once again, is the instability in Central America which is forcing people to flee for their lives, coupled with the administration’s systematic attacks on these same vulnerable individuals,” said Sime.
The American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker group that helps immigrants, slammed the White House for “circumventing congressional oversight to get billions” to build 234 more miles of barrier at the southern border. Currently, around 700 miles of the 2,000-mile boundary has a barrier.
Kamal Essaheb, director of policy and advocacy at the National Immigration Law Center, also took issue with what they said was Trump’s move to grow “fear” in immigrants.
“He shows contemptuous disregard for the institutional toll his actions take and refuses to listen to taxpayers, elected leaders in Congress, or voters whose land and livelihoods are at stake about the destructive harms of militarization and mass surveillance of our borders,” said Essaheb.
Senior administration officials defended the move ahead of Trump’s announcement Friday morning and said the $6.6 billion of Treasury and Defense funding they were using had been previously approved by Congress. They say that under the National Emergencies Act, a president can take the appropriated money and redirect it to what he deems suitable.
Werlin wants to see Trump deal with the humanitarian issue at hand: Half of the 50,000 people taken into custody for illegally entering the U.S. from Mexico in December were families. That figure was seven times greater than a year ago. Despite coming into the country illegally, the majority of families seek out Border Patrol agents and claim a credible fear of returning home, which triggers the start of the asylum process.
“The most pressing immigration issue we confront at the border is one that the president himself has manufactured by unlawfully turning away asylum seekers and cruelly separating parents from their children. Instead of throwing up obstacles, the administration should be focusing its efforts on ensuring a fair and just process for those seeking protection,” Werlin said.
