{"id":71442,"date":"2019-02-14T22:43:02","date_gmt":"2019-02-14T22:43:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/viconsortium.com\/?p=71442"},"modified":"2019-02-15T16:42:41","modified_gmt":"2019-02-15T16:42:41","slug":"trump-to-declare-national-emergency-to-build-wall-potentially-diverting-funds-supporting-usvi-disaster-recovery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wp.viconsortium.com\/?p=71442","title":{"rendered":"Trump To Declare National Emergency To Build Wall, Potentially Diverting Funds Supporting USVI Disaster Recovery"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>President Donald Trump plans on signing a bill to fund the federal government, averting another shut down that would take effect Friday night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At the same time, Mr. Trump will also declare a national state of emergency to secure funding through other means for a wall along the U.S.\/Mexico border, whose aim is to protect the country from illegal immigrants. The border wall is projected to cost $5.7 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The announcement was made by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Thursday afternoon.&nbsp;\u201cHe\u2019s prepared to sign the bill,\u201d Mr. McConnell said on the Senate floor, after a conversation with the president. \u201cHe will also be issuing a national emergency declaration at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Previous reports stated that the Trump administration considered redirecting money from disaster areas to fund the border wall. Among the areas that stand to lose federal dollars is the U.S. Virgin Islands, which was walloped by Hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"On Wednesday, Mr. Trump was leaning towards signing the bill and painted the just over $1 billion included for border security in it as progress. But pressure from the right, which saw Mr. Trump's stance as weak, caused his unwilling embrace of the measure give way to another, more acceptable position: declaring a state of emergency. The move is expected to be swiftly challenged by Democrats, arguing that Congress should control the purse strings of the government, not the president. (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/viconsortium.com\/news-2\/with-trump-leaning-towards-signing-deal-to-fund-govt-fears-of-disaster-funds-being-diverted-from-usvi-subside\/\" target=\"_blank\">On Wednesday<\/a><\/em>, Mr. Trump was leaning towards signing the bill and painted the just over $1 billion included for border security in it as progress. But pressure from the right, which saw Mr. Trump&#8217;s stance as weak, caused his unwilling embrace of the measure to give way to another, more acceptable position: declaring a state of emergency. The move is expected to be swiftly challenged by Democrats, who contend that Congress should control the purse strings of the government, not the White House.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The House is set to vote Thursday evening on the $333 billion package of seven spending bills, according to <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/lawmakers-set-to-vote-on-spending-package-to-keep-government-open-11550157589?mod=hp_lead_pos1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"The House is set to vote Thursday evening on the $333 billion package of seven spending bills, according to The Wall Street Journal. The agreement includes controversial funding for the Homeland Security Department, which oversees the border with Mexico, and whose budget triggered a five-week shutdown that ended last month.  (opens in a new tab)\">The Wall Street Journal<\/a><\/em>. The agreement includes controversial funding for the Homeland Security Department, which oversees the border with Mexico, and whose budget triggered a five-week shutdown that ended last month. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe cannot repeat the disastrous government shutdown, so it is incumbent on Congress to come together to responsibly fund our government,\u201d said House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nita Lowey (D., N.Y.), who led the 17-lawmaker group that struck the agreement. \u201cThis legislation represents a bipartisan compromise and will keep our government open while funding key priorities.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Democrats, who control the House, celebrated the measure as a win against Mr. Trump&#8217;s agenda. They highlighted that the&nbsp;new physical barriers will be largely fencing and levee wall, not concrete wall. And they pointed to other funding in the spending package for Democratic priorities, including affordable housing, census outreach and a 1.9% pay raise for federal civilian workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Republicans on the other hand scuffed at the deal.&nbsp;\u201cThe American people should be outraged when they learn about the border security provisions of this deal,\u201d said Rep. Andy Biggs (R., Ariz.) \u201cInstead of President Trump\u2019s requested amount of $5.7 billion for the wall\u2014as opposed to the $25 billion he really needs\u2014conferees will provide less than $2 billion,\u201d he said, referring to the 17 lawmakers who reached the agreement. On Wednesday, Mr. Biggs introduced a one-week spending bill he urged House leaders to pass while continuing to negotiate, according to The Journal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One thing was clear, however: lawmakers, who had spent hours of painstaking work to reach a compromise, would not reopen negotiations &#8212; not even if sought by the president.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>President Donald Trump plans on signing a bill to fund the federal government, averting another shut down that would take effect Friday night. At the same time, Mr. Trump will also declare a national state of emergency to secure funding through other means for a wall along the U.S.\/Mexico border, whose aim is to protect [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":56605,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[228,191,2474,147],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Trump To Declare National Emergency To Build Wall, Potentially Diverting Funds Supporting USVI Disaster Recovery - V.I. Consortium<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Find Virgin Islands new, opinion, politics, lifestyle, business and more\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/wp.viconsortium.com\/?p=71442\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Ernice Gilbert\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/wp.viconsortium.com\/?p=71442\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/wp.viconsortium.com\/?p=71442\",\"name\":\"Trump To Declare National Emergency To Build Wall, Potentially Diverting Funds Supporting USVI Disaster Recovery - V.I. 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I've been the Editor-In-Chief at my videogames website, Gamesthirst, for over 5 years, writing over 7,000 articles and more than 2 million words. I'm also very passionate about where I live, the United States Virgin Islands, and I'm intent on making it a better place by being resourceful and keeping our leaders honest. VI Consortium was birthed out of said desire, hopefully my efforts bear fruit. Reach me at ernice@viconsortium.com.\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/ernicegilbert.com\/\"],\"url\":\"http:\/\/wp.viconsortium.com\/?author=1\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Trump To Declare National Emergency To Build Wall, Potentially Diverting Funds Supporting USVI Disaster Recovery - V.I. 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