NR: No, Trump Can’t Build a Wall Through Military Eminent Domain

[TomSea]

No, Trump Can’t Build a Wall Through Military Eminent Domain | National Review
By David French

His emergency powers aren’t broad enough to bypass Congress.

Let me begin by stating my policy preference up front. I strongly believe that our nation should bolster its border security, including by building a more effective and longer border wall. A better border barrier would represent a far more humane way of deterring desperate individuals and families from making the extraordinarily dangerous trek to the United States, would properly channel asylum seekers to ports of entry, and would ease the need for border detention facilities.

If you believe a nation can and should control who enters its borders, then border barriers are one part of a solution to the problem of illegal entry. But the wall is a symbol now. Democrats will not consent to constructing the founding promise of Trumpism, and Trump (for now, at least) won’t abandon his signature proposal.

So he’s floating the possibility of declaring a state of emergency, using a “military version” of eminent domain to seize private land along the border, and building the wall without congressional consent. This would be a serious mistake — a lawless abuse of power that would almost certainly be blocked by the courts (including by Trump-appointed judges). In the remote chance it passed legal review, his declaration would have malignant effects on the American constitutional structure. He would enable future presidents to wield vast powers at a whim, shaking the president loose from his constitutional bonds once and for all.

Read more at: https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/01/no-trump-cant-build-a-wall-through-military-eminent-domain/

[TomSea]

Hear ye, despite the National Review piece, in the Daily Caller:

Congress’ Nonpartisan Research Arm Says Trump Could Build The Wall Without State of Emergency Or Funding
4:47 PM 01/24/2019 | Investigative Group
Luke Rosiak | Investigative Reporter

The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service (CRS) released a paper internally that suggests President Donald Trump may have the authority to use Department of Defense resources to build a wall without obtaining congressional approval or declaring a state of emergency.

CRS, Congress’s in-house research arm, internally published a paper Jan. 10 titled “Can the Department of Defense Build the Border Wall?,” which The Daily Caller News Foundation has obtained. It says (emphasis added):

Read more at: https://dailycaller.com/2019/01/24/trump-wall-no-state-of-emergency/