Sheila Jackson Lee: “I thank the gentleman for yielding. The only crisis is the constitutional crisis that has been created by the President…”

“I thank the gentleman for yielding. The only crisis is the constitutional crisis that has been created by the President of the United States by his direct and ill-conceived abuse of power which is noted in the Constitution as a violation of the Constitution. It is sad that the President has declared a national emergency for the purpose of misappropriating funds from previously designated and important uses to build a wall, uses that would be dealt with in a national emergency in case of war that would then call for the building of direct materials and buildings necessary for troops engaging in war. The only response to my good friend who has come back from the border and saw people going over the border is to engage more Border Patrol agents and train them to do the job that they are designated to do. We, as Democrats, support that. Illegal border crossings are at a near 40-year low. Sixty national security personnel, ambassadors, CIA, DNI, and others have indicated that this is wrongheaded. It is wrong. The President's declaration clearly violates Congress' exclusive power of the purse, and if unchecked, would fundamentally alter the balance of powers, violating our Founder's vision for America. That is unconstitutional. To quote Thomas Paine in ``Common Sense,'' it says, `` . . .…”