On February 8, 2019, President Donald Trump declared a national emergency in order to try and build the wall on the border of Mexico. According to Trump he did this to, “[…] get it done faster, that’s all.” This was rejected by the House of Representatives, voting 245-182 against the call. Along with this rejection from the House, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has stated that they will file a lawsuit against the President’s declaration.

These disapprovals have not only raised questions on how much authority the president should have, but have caused a further divide among both parties, even resulting in the issuing of Trump’s first veto on March 15, 2019 that rejects this congressional block. The public have reacted in a variety of ways and taken things to the extreme. Supporters of President Trump have created a “Go Fund Me” page that has now reached $19.7 million since January 8, 2019 in hopes of building the Mexican border wall.

Think about it: President Donald Trump has declared a national emergency because he became frustrated that nobody would provide him money to build his wall. According to duhaime.org, a national emergency is defined as, “A situation beyond the ordinary which threatens the health or safety of citizens and which cannot be properly addressed by the use of other law.” So this declaration of Trump makes absolutely no sense. Nobody is invading the country nor trying to; these immigrants are only seeking asylum. The president is using the same emergency tactic that was used on September 11, 2001 when there indeed was an actual emergency where the citizens of the United States were under threat of a terrorist attack and hundreds of people died. There is something very wrong here if Trump is equating the two situations as similar.

This abuse of power has gone long enough and if representatives in office do not make sure that this power is carefully taken care of, then the future of this country will have a lot of problems. There is no more time to consider both sides of the argument. For the well being of the nation’s citizens and health, there needs to be responsibility taken for the misuse of this power.