President Donald Trump’s main campaign promise was to build a wall, but so far that ridiculous promise has been fulfilled only with lies. Trump is the first president to request money from Congress that wasn’t given to him.

Trump declared an unnecessary national emergency, and within days 16 states, including Minnesota, filed a lawsuit. The immediate backlash is proof of how stupid this executive action is. Congress was quick to block it but unfortunately, Trump was also quick to veto the block.

For years Trump has lied about the status of the wall, by saying Mexico would pay, then recounting his previous claims he said Congress would pay. After both refused, he became lazy and decided to forgo the checks and balances that have driven America since the beginning.

The whole idea of a wall is immoral and a complete waste of money. The wall will become a symbol of America. We could become known as the country who turned their backs on those in need. According to The National Priorities Project, the money for the wall could provide Medicaid for 1.4 million people, resettle more than 10 times the amount of refugees than we did in 2018 and much more. The money could easily be spent to improve the lives of Americans and others if it wasn’t going towards a wall.

The lawsuits include many reasons for why this situation can’t be considered an emergency. This includes pointing out obvious things, like there is no real evidence that there is a crisis at the southern border and, regardless, Congress is supposed to be in control of funding.

“I expect to be sued. I shouldn’t be sued. Very rarely do you get sued when you do a national emergency,” Trump said during his national emergency declaration.

The part Trump is choosing to ignore is that the lowest amount of people crossed the border in his first year of presidency. Although that number did increase a small amount his second year a majority of illegal immigrants are people that overstayed their visas, not crossed the southern border illegally

Trump tried to justify his actions by convincing Americans that he needed to declare a crisis at the southern border but did it without any proof of a crisis. Trump has been calling for a wall for almost three years now and if the so-called crisis at the southern border has been that big of an issue for so long, why did it take two years of his presidency before he declared an emergency? Even Trump knows that his emergency is uncalled for.

“I could do the wall over a longer period of time. I didn’t need to do this, but I’d rather do it much faster,” Trump said during his national emergency declaration.

Eventually, Congress blocked the declaration, Feb 26, but that gave Trump the opportunity to veto the block. March 15. Trump standing firm with his border wall promise is an abuse of presidential power. The national emergencies act was created to provide funding after a tragedy. Immigrants have done nothing to be considered either a tragedy or an emergency.

The whole point of checks and balances is to limit presidential power, but Trump is doing everything he can to avoid the checks to his power.