Southern Alberta Council on Public Affairs (SACPA)

US President Trump recently declared a national emergency in a bid to fund his promised wall on the US – Mexico border without the approval of Congress on the heels of signing a bipartisan government spending bill that would prevent another partial government services closure following a historic 35-day shutdown in December and January. That shutdown was caused by Trump’s demand that Congress provide him with $5.7 billion in wall funding as part of legislation to fund certain government agencies. The Republican president’s move, circumventing Congress and legal scrutiny, seeks to make good on a 2016 presidential campaign promise to build a border wall that Trump contend is needed to stop migrants from entering the US and bringing with them, crime and drugs. Signing the new spending bill represented a legislative defeat for him since it contained even less money for his proposed wall. The speaker will look more broadly at the dysfunctional crisis of American governance (at the national level), and the pre