When building a structure, especially those with stairs, lofts, decks, and balconies, safety is a very much a concern. To ensure safety, building codes necessitate the use of railing systems or balustrades, whether glass balustrades, wood, metal, or stone. Primarily, balusters or balustrades are for supporting the handrail or coping and for the purpose of safety. Walls somehow works in a similar way creating space or an area, security, and support to the structure.
The Border Wall
Just like ensuring safety when building a structure, a country, as it continues to grow and develop, must also safeguard the safety of the nation and the people. For instance, US President Donald Trump on the 25th of January 2017 have signed EO 13767. The Executive Order officially ordered the United States government to start making an effort to build the wall along the border of the US and Mexico expending the standing federal funding. However, the actual building didn’t instantly start because of the substantial amount of money needed to finance to the wall as well as the lack of clearness as to how it would be financed.
The federal government for 35 days, from the 22nd of December 2018 until the 25th of January 2019, was partially shut down due to the insistence of Trump to veto any bill concerning spending that didn’t take into account the funding of border wall which amounts to $5.7 billion in border wall funding.
Funds Diverted For The Wall Construction
President Trump, in February 2019, signed an announcement of National Emergency. The declaration stated that the condition at the border is a crisis that necessitates funds apportioned for other expenditures or purposes to be utilized to construct the wall. A joint resolution was passed by the Congress to reverse the said order; however it was rejected by Trump.
The US Supreme Court in July 2019 ratified the reallocation of the anti- drug funding in the Department of Defense, amounting to $2.5 billion, to build the wall as other legal proceedings carries on. Recently, an added $3.6 billion was reallocated in September 2019. The finance was taken from the funding construction projects of the US military across the world, which includes learning institutions for the American soldiers’ children.