By Robert Willmann
As president Trump is speaking about the U.S. southern border and a national emergency, here is the law that was passed yesterday when probably no one had read all of it, certainly not the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, whose position is that in a "democracy", you have to pass a law before you can find out what is in it–
https://turcopolier.typepad.com/files/immigration-116hjres31enr.pdf
And this was the recorded vote–
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2019/roll087.xml
I have to tend to some other things right now, but if you look at this new law, it is useful to think not only about a border wall and border control, which has been the subject of all the talk and political posturing, but also about language in this new legislation about other parts of the immigration law. Changes or additions to the existing immigration law separate and apart from border control can have a greater effect on not controlling legal and illegal immigration than features of a border wall would.
Also, after a national emergency is declared, and if court action follows, the legal debate will be largely about "statutory construction" — the interplay of two or more laws about a particular subject — and the interpretation of words in different sections of different federal laws and words in the U.S. Constitution.
Update: The National Emergencies Act–
http://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title50/chapter34&edition=prelim
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/chapter-34
Update 2: Regarding the thought above that changes or additions to immigration law separate and apart from the effects of a border wall can be significant, I am trying to emphasize that changes to general immigration law can lead to less control over legal and illegal immigration, and can cause more problems with illegal immigration, than border control itself, even when border control is quite effective.
