President Trump recently declared a National Emergency, but that is only the most recent development in an extensive chain of events. On February 27th, he made this declaration without consulting Congress in an attempt to get funding for the border wall. Currently, the Senate is voting on whether they should repeal the National Emergency. The Democrats have a bill to stop the National Emergency, but President Trump has the power to veto this bill.

This all stems from the government shutdown that began in December and made its way into the new year. This was the longest shutdown in United States history. On December 22, President Trump ordered the shutdown because he wanted to build a wall on the border of Mexico and the United States.

When asked how she felt about the government shutdown, Ms. Antonangeli, the AP Government teacher, said, “Frustrated. The job of our president is to be responsible and the whole thing could have been avoided because they had a plan in place before December 22, but Trump refused to sign it.” She added, “after the shutdown, nothing changed, except people’s lives.”

President Trump has tweeted numerous times regarding the shutdown and the wall. One reads, “Without a wall our Country can never have a border or National Security.” Another says “Democrats are kidding themselves”.

Katelin Andrews, an AP Government student said, “I thought it was ridiculous and unnecessary, but if he wanted to shutdown the government, he was going to do it no matter what.”

Donald Trump is a Republican president and the Democrats run the House of Representatives with a majority of 235 representatives. Democrats said that they would increase border security, but, for over a month, Trump refused to end the shutdown without 5.7 billion dollars for the wall.

The shutdown forced many people to work without pay, including post office workers and TSA agents. It also caused the temporary closing of the Smithsonian museums in Washington, DC.

On January 27th, President Trump agreed to reopen the government for three weeks while further debate about wall was underway. The Democrats however, are not budging.  On February 12th, the Democrats and Republicans came up with a plan to give 1.7 billion dollars to get fencing for the border. President Trump signed the agreement, although he has made it very clear that he is unhappy with this outcome.