Passing unremarked this week were two extensions of states of emergency by the President of the United States. On December 12, Joe Biden published notices in the federal register informing Congress that both the National Emergency on Human Rights Abuse and Corruption and the National Emergency on Global Illicit Drug Trade would be extended another year.
One would assume that such emergencies required action to be taken other than merely kicking the can down the road – but this is the Biden White House, and being seen to be doing something appears to be more favorably viewed than actually doing anything. So why extend them at all?
These states of emergency allow for extra “powers” to be afforded to state operators above and beyond what would be permitted under normal circumstance. They are, in fact, what we might term “wartime powers,” but not in the traditional sense. Presently, 126 powers are afforded to the president when he declares an emergency, with a further 13 when Congress does the same, and can include the imposition of sanctions to the shutdown of national communications. The particular powers bestowed under these two emergencies are enumerated in Executive Orders 13818 and 14089.
A Never-Ending Story of Emergency
When President Barack Obama sought to pull America from the “endless wars” in the Middle East, he took a somewhat circuitous route. Rather than keeping “boots on the ground,” the then-administration applied a “light footprint” strategy. What such Nobel Peace Prize-winning tactics involved were, of course, increased drone strikes, special-op raids, and the fascinatingly titled “disposition matrix” – a kill list by another name would smell as sweet. And it seems that a “light footprint” approach is precisely the tactic being employed by the Biden administration to deal with these ongoing states of emergency.
President Biden is not solely to blame for this continued state of affairs; indeed, the “national emergency with respect to serious human rights abuse and corruption” was initiated under President Trump in December 2017. But one might reasonably ask what, if anything, the current president has done to ameliorate the situation.
Be Anything but Effective
(Photo By Rober Solsona/Europa Press via Getty Images)
Human trafficking and the illicit drug trade are problems that are clearly exacerbated by open borders. Drug mules and those who traffic men, women, and children expect little or no resistance at the southern US border. In fact, between December 9 and 10 – a mere 24-hour period – more than 2,600 migrants were recorded crossing in the El Paso, Texas, region alone. By October 2022, at least 2.7 million migrants had crossed, surpassing last year’s record-breaking figures by more than one million.
The Customs and Border Protection stats show that more than 14,000 pounds of fentanyl have been seized at the border this year – a considerable increase on 2020 amounts. This represents only the drugs that were discovered and retained by agents; how much actually made it into the country is naturally an unknown number. One would assume, however, that in terms of best business practices, that drug dealers are still managing to make a hefty profit on the poundage that does get through. Yet Joe Biden and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas appear unwilling to do anything to control the flow of people and drugs across the border.
So if no steps have been taken to impact the “emergencies” in any positive way, why would the president simply stick to the status quo?
Power for Power’s Sake
President Dwight D. Eisenhower once warned: “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”
A continued state of emergency – or perpetual war, if you will – necessitates in the mind of the government, a need for such seized powers to be kept in place. Few governments in history have ever voluntarily relinquished a power once assumed. Why would Joe Biden be any different?
