WASHINGTON — U.S. Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND) issued the following statement after voting against the resolution of disapproval for President Trump’s national emergency declaration:
“There is a crisis at the southern border. Immigration arrested 266,000 criminal aliens in the last two fiscal years, including those charged with or convicted of nearly 100,000 assaults, 30,000 sex crimes, and 4,000 killings.
“Congress accepted a paltry $1.375 billion to address this crisis knowing in advance that the President would declare this national emergency. If Congress did not want the President to take action, we should have worked with him when we had the opportunity. And if Congress did not want the President to use emergency powers, we should not have given them to him in the first place.
“I voted against the resolution because I read the declaration and I read the statutes, and I am confident President Trump is within his constitutional and statutory authority.”
The Senate passed this resolution on a vote of 59-41. President Trump is now expected to veto the resolution and send it back to the U.S. House of Representatives, where the veto will likely be sustained.
Since the emergency declaration was first declared, Senator Cramer has worked with the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to reform their overly-bureaucratic system to ensure the wall gets built.
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