President Trump’s border security fight is the right one

Right now, President Donald J. Trump is doing something that no other president has ever done — fighting hard to force Congress to fully fund a wall on the southern border. The president is a leader, and he will not back down from cowardly Democrats in Congress who fail to fully fund the wall. The issue of border security is a national-security issue and an issue where Democrats are failing the American people.{mosads}

As he outlined in his speech to the nation from the Oval Office on Tuesday, the president is keeping his promise to keep Americans safe. Stopping illegal immigrants from crossing the border to commit crimes — including the killing of police officers in California and the son of a firefighter in Tennessee — is a top national-security priority. California police officer Ronil Singh, an immigrant himself, was killed by an illegal immigrant during a traffic stop in December. That same week, Pierce Corcoran, son of a Knoxville, Tenn., fire department captain, was killed by an illegal immigrant driving on the wrong side of the road. The families of the victims of crimes by illegal immigrants are very supportive of the president’s efforts to protect the border.

As much as people want to hammer President Trump for the partial government shutdown, the fact remains that Democrats have promised not one penny for a wall. The Democrats in the Senate will filibuster any bill that funds the wall for anywhere near $5 billion for this year. Yet, Democrats have tried to pin all the blame (or is it the credit?) for the shutdown on the president.

Don’t be fooled by Democrats screaming about a “Trump shutdown” when, in the next breath, they call him names and promise no commitment of money to protect the southern border from a criminal element that uses a porous border to export drugs and crime.

Even the Obama administration recognized the problem of crime coming from illegal immigrants. A 2011 Obama administration General Accounting Office study found that illegal aliens committed a large number of crimes. Out of about 2.9 million estimated criminal offenses, the GAO estimated that there were 25,000 charges for homicide, 70,000 charges for sex offenses and a staggering 213,000 for assault. The Obama administration did not try to build a wall and did little to combat illegal immigrant crime, even though they had documentation of the problems. Since then, Democrats have become the party of open borders.

The president has never wavered, over the past two years, from his promise to put a wall on the southern border. The same cannot be said of Democrats. This is an issue where Democrats have flip-flopped. In 2006, the Secure Fence Act had the Democratic support of possible presidential candidate but then-Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.), in addition to failed Democratic nominee for president but then-Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) and soon-to-be president but then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.). Current Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) also voted for that bill, which mandated a fence on the southern border.

In other words, Democrats were for a wall before they were against it.{mossecondads}

Some are falsely claiming that the partial government shutdown is doing irreparable harm to our nation. The furloughs are not preventing people from filing taxes, and the people not at work are going to get retroactive pay when this controversy passes. Many of the government employees who are currently unpaid on the southern border are asking the president for some help in the form of a wall to stop the flow of illegal immigrants across the border. Not all government employees have a problem with this partial shutdown.

The president may have to resort to his Article II, Section 2 powers over the military to use them to build the southern border fence and to protect the border. Experts have debated whether President Trump has the power to reprogram funding to build the wall, and that question will be determined by the Courts. Yet, the Constitution seems clear that the president’s power is broad and likely includes this power. Don’t be fooled by Democrats who state that the president can’t do it, because it is likely he will take strong action and the Democrats will rush to the courts to stop the border wall from being completed.

It is clear to most Americans that the situation on the border is a state of emergency. Since President Jimmy Carter’s administration there have been 52 declared states of emergency for many reasons, and the crisis at the border seems to rise to the level of a national emergency.

Thankfully, President Trump is doing all he can, in the face of strong opposition, to strengthen the southern border and to protect Americans from harm.

Time for obstructionist Democrats to get out of the way.

Corey R. Lewandowski (@CLewandowski_) served as a campaign manager to Donald J. Trump, the 45th president of the United States, and is a senior adviser to the Great America Committee, Vice President Mike Pence‘s political action committee. He is co-author with David Bossie of the new book, “Trump’s Enemies,” and of “Let Trump Be Trump: The Inside Story of His Rise to the Presidency.”