Trump to sign border bill, declare emergency: McConnell | Hacker News Reader

Trump to sign border bill, declare emergency: McConnell

reuters.com

13 pointskevinguay26 comments

Trump is going to win reelection in 2020 isn't he?

Yup. And the echo chamber is never going to see it coming. Again.

Depends on if the Democrats can find someone less horrible than Hillary to run against him. He's not (I trust) going to win by declaring an emergency and using that to rig or abolish the election. He might win by declaring the emergency in order to do what he wants to with the border, if enough people agree with what he does with the border.

There already will be ongoing state of emergency, too dangerous for open elections etc.

> There already will be ongoing state of emergency,

There have been several overlapping states of emergency for the last several elections; in fact, the US has been in a State of Emergency with regard to Iran since 1979; there are, I believe, in the neighborhood of 30 active states of emergency.

Thank you. I didn't know this and looked it up on wikipedia, which lists them here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_emergencies_i...

Apparently trump has already issued three such State of Emergencies. Is this just sloppy journalism that describe this as a unique event, or is this new one different in some legal sense?

It is, I believe, unprecedented to use a state of emergency to achieve a policy end which Congress has been asked to support and declined to do so.

It may likewise be unprecedented to use a state of emergency to address a long-ongoing condition for which there is no relevant emergent change triggering the declaration.

So, yes, a declaration here would be new and different.

At some point Trump supporters are going to have to stop bringing up Hillary and realize they bought a lemon.

It's one thing to vote against Hillary Clinton, even though that's not actually a thing you can do in an election, but... Trump has proven himself to be not good at his job, not effective at communicating, or governing, or even negotiation.

We had two lemons in that election, and a bunch of people voted for the one that they thought would be less sour.

Will they think the same after (so to speak) having to actually taste that sourness for four years? Plausibly not. But the Dems could really help themselves by running someone with less flaws and less baggage. (Though it might be impossible to find someone with more baggage than Trump...)

What's the best alternative way to minimize the number of people in the country illegally?

It's fine enough to say this option sucks, but you have to bring a better one.

Or you have to deny that people in this country illegally is a problem. (I don't agree with that position, but it is a logically valid one.)

It's a valid position I guess. But having illegal status opens you up to all kinds of exploitation, violence, etc. It'd be hard to argue that this is a good alternative.

So I meant that people could deny that there was any need to control the number of people who entered the country. That is, that there was no need to control the border. But as you point out, that position would probably require you to abolish "illegal" as a status. That is, if you're here, you're just like a citizen.

Not five years ago I uttered that very thought. But more recent events, in Europe for example, utterly demolish the sentiment.

The rate of immigration must be carefully controlled if disaster is to be avoided. You can bake a cake at 350, but nothing good will come of baking it at 3500 (much less 35,000).

Or at least "just like a legal permanent resident."

Yeah, that's better.

> What's the best alternative way to minimize the number of people in the country illegally?

Make it easier to immigrate legally.

Sweden recently had a government study that showed the economics per immigrant (tax vs costs), which came down to a overall cost to society for a the observed period of one generation. The author said that this mean immigration could be viewed as humanitarian aid and balanced as such.

Has there been similar studies in the US?

> What's the best alternative way to minimize the number of people in the country illegally?

Fix the rules on allocating legal slots to be sensible, starting with aligning supply with demand by eliminating the per country proportion limit of the global allocation in each category would be the best alternative, but you don't need the best to be a better alternative.

> It's fine enough to say this option sucks, but you have to bring a better one.

Literally doing nothing would be better, on a net benefit after costs perspective, then building a wall.

Given the numbers involved, the _cost_ of the wall seems like a very minor issue.

I'm far more open to arguments about who is harmed by the alternatives and to what degree.

Is he going to use eminent domain to acquire several hundred miles of bordering properties? [1]

[1] - https://www.revealnews.org/article/this-land-is-our-land-man...

On one hand, this is progress. I'd rather they (both sides) nothold the entire government hostage for this one issue.

On the other hand, this is kind of scary. I don't like the President accumulating more and more power at the expense of Congress (though Congress has earned it, by becoming progressively more worthless for the past 2 or 3 decades). I therefore don't like the President governing by executive orders; I like even less him governing by declaring emergencies.

Expansion of executive power has been going on for decades now. The Democrats had plenty of opportunities to roll this back under Obama, after seeing what sort of powers Bush had used it for. Instead, they decided to allow executive order to become even more powerful without considering what may happen next.

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